The Full Body Project

I can’t believe I’m writing a blog entry extolling the artistic talents of Leonard Nimoy. Who’d have thunk it. But, talent is talent, and intriguing and thought-provoking content is intriguing and thought provoking content. If sales or the lack of ability to track down a copy of his latest book of photography is any indicator, I’m not the only one who finds his latest project entitled The Full Body Project something worth contemplating.

Nimoy has no doubt got a good eye. His Shekhina Project which challenged the use of traditional Jewish garb and the feminine presence of God was striking to say the least. None of these women are conventionally beautiful, but all are utterly striking-but their presence as subjects seems to shout out to the universal form of woman-rather than of the specific subject photographed. His work is about light and angles, of lines and shade. This photograph of a woman crucified is hard to look at-be it male or female, this drawn, taught, exposed body is the essence of vulnerability and it is hard to look at and realize that this is human-this is woman and man.

In his new collection he has once again stretched the envelope of our everyday comfort zones not by striking out at religion, but at our perceptions of the shape of women in our modern society. I’m Rubenesque myself, so I can talk about this-the way you can talk about the African American or Jewish experience only if you are one. So, if you don’t like what I have to say, eat a biscuit, shop in the “Women’s” size section (yeah-I mean over size 16 folks) and then give me a call.

Okay, honest-at first these were not easy to look at. We as a society are so programmed whether we can even admit it or not, to expect a female body to look a certain way. Breasts should be pert, tummies pleasantly flat or mildly rounded, not drooping, thighs smooth and arms certainly not waggly. But, let’s be realistic-go home, get naked and look in the mirror. Think about taking out your camera and having somebody take your snapshot while totally nude. Do you think you’d see on the print what you see in your mind? Probably not.

On second glance when you get past the “oh please don’t let me look like that” (knowing you probably do more than you think) you can look at the work from an artistic perspective. And then look again, and then again. Keep looking. The lines and composition are lovely. Yes, he didn’t do it first. Most of these are classic poses by geniuses like Matisse, Marcel Duchamp and Helmut Newton. But, what a great choice he made by recreating “Dance” How beautiful. Truly-look at that and tell me that is not a beautiful photograph.

There’s a lot of controversy about these pictures. Some are saying Nimoy is glorifying the “fat activist” that’s working to make people accept what they don’t choose to accept-that America is full of fat people. Others say that if he wasn’t who he was that these images would never have seen the light of day with the popular masses (they’re probably right). Above all, I simply ask you to look at these pictures and tell me that they aren’t real. Real representations of the human form in the 21st century.

That is art.
That is creativity.
That is brave.

Mr. Nimoy-you are no longer Spock to me. You are an artist.

Liverpool Will Have a Web of Light

First the Beatles, now a gigantic spiderweb made out of millions of tiny lights. Oooh. I can't wait.
The Tate Liverpool has commissioned Chinese artist Ai Weiwei to make an ambitious installation for the Liverpool Biennial, opening next September.

The installation will span the width of the historic former dockyard where the gallery is located. The engineering firm Arup is currently conducting a feasibility study for Web of Light which will be concluded by the end of this month.

The gigantic web will consist of illuminated crystalline strands suspended from steel cables which stretch across the Albert Dock. A spider made out of crystals will hang in the corner nearest to Tate; the entire installation will weigh over eight tons.

The gallery will need to raise around £400,000 to realize the work. So cough up folks.

Ai Weiwei has already made an installation for Tate Liverpool included in the exhibition “The Real Thing: Contemporary Art from China” earlier this year. Fountain of Light was a two-ton eight-meter-high steel structure illuminated like a chandelier which floated in the middle of the dock.
Simon Groom, formerly Head of Exhibitions at Tate Liverpool, now director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, says: “Ai Weiwei very much liked the architecture of the Albert Dock, as well as the sense of energy in Liverpool which he compared to Beijing. Given the success and popular appeal of the first work, it seemed only natural to want to pursue something of an even more ambitious and spectacular nature, and Web of Light promises to be the ‘must-see’ landmark public work for Capital of Culture.

The work is incredibly ambitious, and of a scale to dwarf every other major public commission—but this is what happens when the ambitions of a country like China collide with those of a city like Liverpool!”

I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Gauguin's Teeth Found in a Well

I'm in training in NYC all day today, but I saw this and couldn't resist. I don't know why, but I love this story. What a cool find.

LONDON- An archaeological dig on the remote Marquesan island of Hiva Oa has uncovered the secrets of the water well used by Paul Gauguin. The buried objects range from a New Zealand beer bottle to four human teeth.

Gauguin lived in the village of Atuona from 1901 until his death two years later. He built his own Maori-style hut, “la Maison du Jouir” (house of pleasure), and dug a well just outside. The Marquesans did not use wells, but springs, and after Gauguin died it was filled with rubbish from his home.

The results of the excavation are revealed in the inaugural issue of Van Gogh Studies, an annual scholarly review from Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, out this month. The essay, by Gauguin specialist Caroline Boyle-Turner, is the first report in English on the 2000 dig (a few other details emerged earlier in specialist publications).

Objects from Gauguin’s time were found around 2.7 metres below ground level. There was a Bovril jar from England, and various liquor bottles. Five broken pieces of hand-decorated plate made in Quimper presumably date from when Gauguin was painting in Brittany.

Broken perfume bottles were found, embossed “France”. Dr Boyle-Turner notes that “a way to please women in Polynesia was to offer them perfume”.

Artistic materials found included three chunks of orange and ochre minerals, still smelling of linseed oil, suggesting that Gauguin made his own paint. A broken coconut shell with pigments was probably used as a palette.

Gauguin is likely to have suffered from syphilis, and had serious eczema. A buried syringe and two ampoules which had contained morphine were presumably for pain relief. The four teeth show signs of severe decay, suggesting they are European (the Marquesans did not eat sugar). They are likely to be Gauguin’s, and he may have had them extracted and then saved them.

The finds from the well now belong to the municipality of Atuona, which bought the site and erected a replica of Gauguin’s Maison du Jouir in 2003.

Beware the Giant Floating Rabbit

Oh Jeff Koons you wacky wabbit you. Last week’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade must have made you such a happy little bunny. In fact, I’m sure it made you a chunk more change, which no doubt you’re in need of (yeah, right).

For those of you who chose to stay tucked warmly away in your beds on Thanksgiving morning you missed a gigantic silver “Rabbit” balloon drifting through Times Square behind the new Shrek balloon. Art lovers might not have recognized it immediately, but there it was none the less-art amidst all that commercialism.

Jeff Koons famous 1986 stainless-steel Rabbit sculpture was transformed into a 53 x 26-foot inflatable for this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The giant bunny joined Shrek, Hello Kitty Supercute, Abby Cadabby, and Arrtie the Pirate as a new character in the parade, but it has the distinct honor of being the first piece commissioned for Macy's Blue Sky Gallery. One of the biggest challenges was replicating Rabbit's reflective surface, which was achieved by covering the helium balloon with metallic-coated fabric

The gigantic metallic monochrome bunny stood out from other more well-known balloons made up of bright colors and signature details that made them recognizable to all. The house-sized version of Shrek, for example, had green skin, brown-and-red plaid pants and a goofy grin.

First of all, there was its metallic monochrome color, whereas most of its inflatable fellow travelers were medleys of bright colors and signature details. The truck-size version of Shrek, for example, just ahead of the Koons, had green skin, brown-and-red plaid pants and a goofy grin. Koon’s rabbit had a shimmering astronaut-suit blankness that made it abstract, “a thing in itself” as the ole Minimalists liked to say, that was there just for the sheer spectacle of it.

This isn’t the first odd installment of public art for Koon’s. Several years ago a topiary “Puppy” towered over Rockefeller Center. And of course, there are the paintings and sculptures of he and his porn star, Italian politician first wife Ilona Staller in flagrante delicto which are well…unforgettable if not disturbing. That being said-most of his work and primary themes are child-like awe, innocence, and out-and-out joy.

In 1986, Koons made one of his best-known works: a Mylar Easter bunny cast in highly polished stainless steel. The taut, gleaming result, about three feet high, created a wonderful tension between the expected lightness and softness of the original and the palpable rigidity and weight of the facsimile.

This tension was further cultivated in a recent series of Koons sculptures that are exact but enlarged replicas of twisted balloon animals. Their chrome-finish colors suggest luxurious automobiles, but their forms seem feather light, capable of being wafted aloft by the slightest wind.

Now that has happened. The “Rabbit” has returned to its original soft form, and, many times larger at more than 50 feet high, taken to the air. Floating overhead yesterday, it was a jubilant reminder of the way contemporary artists dip in and out of mainstream life, effortlessly working high, low and in between. That is where the latest, biggest “Rabbit” is suspended, and where it will stay. Owned by Macy’s and slated to fly in future parades, it will not be turning up at auction any time soon.

That Sound Isn't Norman Mailer Spinning in His Grave

He’s probably laughing.

Not that the conception of Adolf Hitler was ever going to make for a comforting read by the fire, but the explicit rendition of the incestuous encounter between the evil bastard’s parents has won the late Norman Mailer one of the worlds most unsavory literary prizes.

Since 1993 by the Literary Review, a London literary journal has been handing out the “Bad Sex in Fiction” award. The rationale of the award is to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it". :. The award was originally established by Rhoda Koenig, a literary critic, and Auberon Waugh, then editor of the Literary Review.

The excerpt that won the award is from Mailer’s last work of fiction, The Castle in the Forest. It is the story of Adolf Hitler's childhood as seen through the eyes of Dieter, a demon sent to put him on his destructive path. The novel explores the idea that Hitler had no Jewish heritage but was the product of incest. It forms a thematic contrast with the writer’s immediately previous novel The Gospel According to the Son (1997), which deals with the early life of Jesus.

Okay-interesting concept. I have to admit that I’ve not read it yet. And frankly, it will be on the “books I should really read, but probably won’t” book stack for the next decade or so. Just isn’t my oeuvre.

The excerpt is taken from one of Mailer's last works, "The Castle in the Forest," a fictionalized exploration of Hitler's family, narrated by a demon. In the passage, the demon describes the moment Adolf is conceived, as Klara embraces Alois, a man the novel says was her uncle, "with an avidity that could come only from the Evil One." The winning passage, which leaves little to the imagination, begins: "So Klara turned head to foot and put her most unmentionable part down on his hard-breathing nose and mouth and took his old battering ram into her lips."

Not that this isn’t bad enough-but think about it Hilter now. Shudder.

Others shortlisted for the prize include Christopher Rush, whose book "Will" offers a firsthand account of a sex between William Shakespeare and his wife, Anne Hathaway. The bard praises his wife's anatomy in excruciating detail.

One of my personal favorite authors also was tapped for work. Jeannette Winterson was picked for her awkward love scene in "The Stone Gods," involving a woman and a robot. Oh Jeanette. You’re too good for this-what where you thinking dear?

So, what would Mailer think of all of this to-do? Frankly, he’d probably either kick some ass or just have a really, really big scotch, show up crocked and take it like a man. Either way, I’d have loved to have seen either reaction.

A Poetic Digestive Aide

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.

Dorothy Parker, Not So Deep As Well (1937)

I don't often remember quotes. I wish I was one of those people who could reel off sonnets by Shakespeare, verse by Milton, divine snippets of Nabakov, and famous quotes by the famous-but I'm not. All of these things slip though my mind as through a strainer no matter how many times I try to keep them locked up there for future use. Strangely, the above is one of the few quotes that I do consistently remember. It's almost a little song. Maybe its just the cadence of Ms. Parker. Maybe it's the biting wit. But, I do remember many of her witticisms.

It might seem beyond odd. And, I might have already posted this before in this blog, but one of the few poems I can recite line and verse is by Ms. Parker as well. Not exactly uplifting Thanksgiving reading, but then when is Ms. Parker ever uplifting? Well, she makes me smile. Maybe she'll make you smile today as well.

If anyone is reading today, Happy Thanksgiving.

Here's a touch of poetry to help you digest your turkey and canned cranberry sauce.

Résumé

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

Word of the Day: Cuckold

Cuckold: (Middle English cokewald, from Anglo-Norman *cucuald, from cucu, the cuckoo, from Vulgar Latin *cuccūlus, from Latin cucūlus.)

Word History: The allusion to the cuckoo on which the word cuckold is based may not be appreciated by those unfamiliar with the nesting habits of certain varieties of this bird. The female of some Old World cuckoos lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, leaving them to be cared for by the resident nesters. This parasitic tendency has given the female bird a figurative reputation for unfaithfulness as well. Hence in Old French the word cucault, composed of cocu, “cuckoo, cuckold,” and the pejorative suffix-ald and used to designate a husband whose wife, lover or friend has wandered afield like the female cuckoo. An earlier assumed form of the Old French word was borrowed into Middle English by way of Anglo-Norman. Middle English cokewold, the ancestor of Modern English cuckold, is first recorded in a work written around 1250.

When was the last time you heard the word cuckold? I would expect, even if you are well read it was most likely in the Wes Anderson film, The Royal Tenenbaums. I picture Bill Murray, eyes cast down, confronting Margo after finding out about her sexual betrayal of him through years of marriage. Throughout history, the “cuckold” has typically been viewed as a fool, lacking in wit, power and general masculine wherewithal. In medieval times, the word was illustrated by legends of villagers donning horns and parading around to humiliate husbands.

I didn’t realize until today, that the word cuckold always applies to the male of the species (no matter what species that is). The female gender apparently gets a much cooler version- the cuckqean. It’s admittedly snappier sounding, but still unpleasant none-the-less.

Apparently, it’s little used because as far as the larger sense of the word’s meaning is concerned there has been no female equivalent of the cuckold. Wronged wives, lovers and friends have historically been figures of sympathy, not jest. The difference has stemmed from the fact that throughout history, a wife’s infidelity meant male power and privilege was upended, the natural order of things usurped. At least that’s the way it’s traditionally been.

Just a bit of lexiconography for your Monday consideration. Abiento.

Three Thanksgiving Quotes

"Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for - annually, not oftener - if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man's side, consequently on the Lord's side; hence it was proper to thank the Lord for it and extend the usual annual compliments."
- Mark Twain

"Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday...The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production."
- Ayn Rand

"Turkey: A large bird whose flesh, when eaten on certain religious anniversaries has the peculiar property of attesting piety and gratitude."
- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

I'm such a cynic. Happy early turkey day.

Thanksgiving A Week Early- Robert Benchley's Famous Turkey

Everyone who knows me knows that I adore the writers of the Algonquin Round Table. Robert Benchley, side-kick to Dorothy Parker was one of its pithiest. The duality of his family-man façade and literary man about town make him the perfect host for this wonderful little snippet of Thanksgiving cookery advice.

Rumors persist about this recipe. This blackened turkey is part of the 1930s legends associated with Harold Ross and The New Yorker's team of contributing writers. First thought to have been contained in a manuscript given to Robert Benchley by Morton Thompson, this highly seasoned and ultimately blackened turkey pops up every year. Perhaps to console his conscience (Benchley, it is said, lost Thompson's manuscript titled, The Naked Countess) this recipe became part lore, part recitation, and part of an annual holiday toast that Benchley included in his repertoire.

:: A Seasoned Blackened Turkey :: Serve to spiced New Yorkers::"

This turkey is work... it requires more attention than an average six-month-old baby. There are no shortcuts, as you will see.

Get a HUGE turkey-- I don't mean just a big, big bird, but one that looks as though it gave the farmer a hard time when he did it in. It ought to weigh between 16 and 30 pounds. Have the poultryman, or butcher, cut its head off at the end of the neck, peel back the skin, and remove the neck close to the body, leaving the tube. You will want this for stuffing. Also , he should leave all the fat on the bird.

When you are ready to cook your bird, rub it inside and out with salt and pepper. Give it a friendly pat and set it aside. Chop the heart, gizzard, and liver and put them, with the neck, into a stew pan with a clove of garlic, a large bay leaf, 1/2 tsp coriander, and some salt. I don't know how much salt-- whatever you think. Cover this with about 5 cups of water and put on the stove to simmer. This will be the basting fluid a little later.

About this time I generally have my first drink of the day, usually a RAMOS FIZZ. I concoct it by taking the whites of four eggs, an equal amount of whipping cream, juice of half a lemon (less 1 tsp.), 1/2 tsp. confectioner's sugar, an appropriate amount of gin, and blending with a few ice cubes. Pour about two tablespoons of club soda in a chimney glass, add the mix, with ice cubes if you prefer. Save your egg yolks, plus 1 tsp. of lemon -- you'll need them later. Have a good sip! (add 1 dash of Orange Flower Water to the drink, not the egg yolks)

Get a huge bowl. Throw into it one diced apple, one diced orange, a large can of crushed pineapple, the grated rind of a lemon, and three tablespoons of chopped preserved ginger (If you like ginger, double this -REB). Add 2 cans of drained Chinese water chestnuts.

Mix this altogether, and have another sip of your drink. Get a second, somewhat smaller, bowl. Into this, measuring by teaspoons, put:

2 tsp hot dry mustard
2 tsp caraway seed
2 tsp celery seed
2 tsp poppy seed
1 tsp black pepper
2 1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp mace
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp marjoram
1/2 tsp savory
3/4 tsp sage
3/4 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp basil
1/2 tsp chili powder
In the same bowl, add:
1 Tbsp poultry seasoning
4 Tbsp parsley
1 Tbsp salt
4 headless crushed cloves
1 well-crushed bay leaf
4 lrg chopped onions
6 good dashes Tabasco
5 crushed garlic cloves
6 lrg chopped celery

Wipe your brow, refocus your eyes, get yet another drink--and a third bowl. Put in three packages of unseasoned bread crumbs (or two loaves of toast or bread crumbs), 3/4 lb. ground veal, 1/2 lb. ground fresh pork, 1/4 lb. butter, and all the fat you have been able to pull out of thebird.

About now it seems advisable to switch drinks. Martinis or stingers are recommended (Do this at your own risk - we always did! -REB). Get a fourth bowl, an enormous one. Take a sip for a few minutes, wash your hands, and mix the contents of all the other bowls. Mix it well. Stuffthe bird and skewer it. Put the leftover stuffing into the neck tube.

Turn your oven to 500 degrees F and get out a fifth small bowl. Make a paste consisting of those four egg yolks and lemon juice left from the Ramos Fizz. Add 1 tsp hot dry mustard, a crushed clove of garlic, 1 Tbl onion juice, and enough flour to make a stiff paste. When the oven isred hot, put the bird in, breast down on the rack. Sip on your drink until the bird has begin to brown all over, then take it out and paint the bird all over with paste. Put it back in and turn the oven down to 350 degrees F. Let the paste set, then pull the bird out and paint again. Keep doing this until the paste is used up.

Add a quart of cider or white wine to the stuff that's been simmering on the stove, This is your basting fluid. The turkey must be basted every 15 minutes. Don't argue. Set your timer and keep it up. (When confronted with the choice "do I baste from the juice under the bird or do I bastewith the juice from the pot on the stove?" make certain that the juice under the bird neither dries out and burns, nor becomes so thin that gravy is weak. When you run out of baste, use cheap red wine. This critter makes incredible gravy! -REB) The bird should cook about 12 minutes per pound, basting every 15 minutes. Enlist the aid of your friends and family.

As the bird cooks, it will first get a light brown, then a dark brown, then darker and darker. After about 2 hours you will think I'm crazy. The bird will be turning black. (Newcomers to black turkey will think you are demented and drunk on your butt, which, if you've followed instructions, you are -REB) In fact, by the time it is finished, it will look as though we have ruined it. Take a fork and poke at the black cindery crust.

Beneath, the bird will be a gorgeous mahogany, reminding one of those golden-browns found in precious Rembrandts. Stick the fork too deep, and the juice will gush to the ceiling. When you take it out, ready to carve it, you will find that you do not need a knife. A load sound will causethe bird to fall apart like the walls of that famed biblical city. The moist flesh will drive you crazy, and the stuffing--well, there is nothing like it on this earth. You will make the gravy just like it asalways done, adding the giblets and what is left of the basting fluid.

Sometime during the meal, use a moment to give thanks to Morton Thompson. There is seldom, if ever, leftover turkey when this recipe is used. If there is, you'll find that the fowl retains its moisture for a few days.

That's all there is to it. It's work, hard work--- but it's worth it.

Le Procope- The Very First Coffee House

Le Procope, the world’s first coffeehouse and oldest restaurant, founded in 1686, is situated at 13 rue de l’Ancienne-Comédie – just a few blocks west of the cafés. Supposedly Voltaire would drink 40 cups of its coffee per day. It was also a haunt of the young Napoléon I. Sadly; it’s no longer a coffee house, but rather an elegant restaurant. This is just another example of places that I love for their past even more than I do for their present circumstances. The last time I was in Paris (admittedly it was seven years ago) I stopped in front of Procope, but alas, was too poor to plonk down for the dinner rates. Anywhoo, it has a fascinating history, and here’s a dollop of it.

In 1686 a gentleman from Palermo, Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, opened a coffee-shop in Paris. The excellence of his beverages and sherbets, the agreeable surroundings, the proximity of the old Comedie-Francaise; all of these factors contributed to the popularity of this establishment. It very soon became a meeting place for people of sensibility, and the first literary coffee-shop was born.

For more than two centuries everyone who was anyone (or who hoped to become someone) in the worlds of the arts, letters and politics, frequented the Café Procope. Voltaire visited, and Rousseau; Beaumarchais, Balzac, Verlaine and Hugo; from La Fontaine to Anatole France the list of the habitués of the Procope is a list of the great names in French literature. It was here in the 18th century that the new liberal philosophy was expounded; this was the cafe of Encyclopedistes, of Diderot, Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin; the history of the Procope is closely linked with eighteenth century revolutionary ideas. Robespierre, Danton and Marat used the cafe as a meeting place, and the young lieutenant Napoleon Bonaparte left his hat here as a pledge.

You may have a picture in your head of a homey little coffee shop, a quaint café of the style that Paris is famous- small tables, little chairs, and lovely coffee. Wrong. Procope is more crystal chandeliers, guilt and fine paintings. The food though is less haute than traditional-so at least that hasn’t changed. Even if you can’t afford a dinner there, it’s certainly worth the stop off. If you’re fortunate you’ll be there when the place isn’t stuffed to the gills with people and you might catch a whiff of its magnificent past.

If I Die Before I Wake- Remembering Norman Mailer

Part of a childhood prayer yes, but none-the-less, should I die before I wake I hope that the world might remember me with just a few of the praises used to uligize author Normal Mailer who passed away Saturday at the age of 84.

Gore Vidal said of Mailer; ““He was interesting, because he was interested,” and “He had a radical imagination, a way of approaching subjects that was never boring.”E.L. Doctrow described Mailer as ““He was by nature bound to a style of excess,”What an absolutely delicious way to be remembered.

There is good and bad to every man, to every human, to every living thing. Mailer was no exception. He had six wives, including the only daughter of the 11th Duke of Argyll. He stabbed his second wife, Adele Morales, at a penknife at a party-an incident that has long been a focal point for feminist critics of Mahler who have often pointed to the sexual violence against women in his work. Adele recovered completely, but needless to say, their marriage didn’t last.

I probably wouldn’t have wanted to meet him in-person, he was a man’s man from another time. He was the smoking, scotch drinking, womanizer that existed comfortably in the 50’s and 60’s but has become a thing of the past in the 21st Century. He probably would have made Frank Sinatra and feel like a wimp. I can see Mailer and John Wayne having drinks and saying things like “damn right, that’s where she should stay, at home, preferably in bed.” He’d have probably told me I was a fat, loud-mouthed broad. And, maybe he’d be right. But, takes one to know one.

In looking around today to try and sum up his life I found two remininiscences of him that seem to say it all. According to Peter Manso’s biography of Mailer, he encountered a passing punk while walking his poodles in Brooklyn one day. The punk incautiously suggested to the burly author that his poodles were homosexual. ‘Nobody’s gonna call my dog a queer,’ Mailer exploded, before throwing himself at the punk and almost loosing an eye in the ensuing altercation.

Secondly, during the 60’s and 70’s he enjoyed wandering the city with Truman Capote, the two getting up to all kinds of trouble. Mailer described once being taken to a club by Capote called Corpse- which Mailer discovered to his horror had taken its name from a cadaver displayed on a slab in the middle of the dance floor. Mailer screamed at Capote in disgust, but his diminutive companion shrugged and replied, ‘Oh Norman, don’t be angry, they change the body fresh every day.’ It turned out that the club had a deal with the city morgue.

You have to love that. Love the man. Hate the man. Or, both. He was a writer’s writer. As the Associated Press said in its obituary of him today, ‘we have only started to miss him.’

Sherlock Holmes Foiled by Fairies

In 1917, two teenage girls in Yorkshire produced photographs they had taken of fairies in their garden. Elsie Wright (age 16) and her cousin Frances Griffiths (age 10) used a simple camera and were said to be lacking any knowledge of photography or photographic trickery.

The first photo, showed Frances in the garden with a waterfall in the background and a shrub in the foreground. Four fairies are dancing upon the shrub. Three have wings and one is playing a long flute-like instrument. Frances is not looking at the fairies just in front of her, but seems to be posing for the camera. Though the waterfall is blurred, indicating a slow shutter speed, the fairies, are not blurred, even though leaping in the air.

Photographic experts who were consulted declared that none of the negatives had been tampered with, there was no evidence of double exposures, and that a slight blurring of one of the fairies in photo number one indicated that the fairy was moving during the exposure of 1/50 or 1/100 second. They seemed not to even entertain the simpler explanation that the fairies were simple paper cut-outs fastened on the bush, jiggling slightly in the breeze. Doyle and other believers were also not troubled by the fact that the fairy's wings never showed blurred movement, even in the picture of the fairy calmly posed suspended in mid-air. Apparently fairy wings don't work like hummingbird's wings.

Three years later, the girls produced three more photos.

The girls said they could not photograph the fairies when anyone else was watching. No one else could photograph the fairies. There was only one independent witness, Geoffrey L. Hodson, a Theosophist writer, who claimed to see the fairies, and confirmed the girls' observations "in all details".

Arthur Conon Doyle not only accepted these photos as genuine, he even wrote two pamphlets and a book attesting the genuineness of these photos, and including much additional fairy lore. His book, The Coming of the Fairies, is still in print, and some people still believe the photos are authentic. Doyle's books make very interesting reading even today.

Some thought Conan Doyle crazy, but he defended the reality of fairies with all the evidence he could find. He counters the arguments of the disbelievers eloquently and at great length. In fact, his arguments sound surprisingly similar in every respect to present-day books touting the idea that alien beings visit us in UFOs. Robert Sheaffer wrote a clever article drawing these parallels beautifully.

Over the years the mystery persisted. Only a few die-hards believed the photos were of real fairies, but the mystery of the details of how (and why) they were made continued to fascinate serious students of hoaxes, frauds and deceptions. When the girls (as adults) were interviewed, their responses were evasive. In a BBC broadcast interview in 1975 Elsie said: "I've told you that they're photographs of figments of our imagination and that's what I'm sticking to."
In 1977 Fred Gettings stumbled on important evidence while working on a study of early nineteenth-century book illustrations. He found drawings by Claude A. Shepperson in a 1915 children's book which the girls could easily have posessed, and which were, without a doubt, the models for the fairies which appeared in the photos.

A curious fact is that in this book, a compilation of short stories and poems for children by various authors, there's a story, "Bimbashi Joyce" by Arthur Conan Doyle! Surely he received a copy from the publisher. If Doyle had noticed this picture, and if he had the sort of perceptiveness he attributed to Sherlock Holmes, he might have concluded that the Cottingley photographs were fakes. But, maybe not. Believers are good at seeing what they believe, and not seeing things that challenge their beliefs. Or perhaps the close match of drawing and photos is a supernatural psychic coincidence.

Elsie and Frances and Mr. Hodson were still living in 1977, and continued to stick to their story, affirming the genuineness of the fairies and the photos. Then, in 1982 the girls admitted, in interviews with Joe Cooper, that they had faked the first four of the photos.

As many had suspected all along, the girls had used paper cutouts of fairy drawings. No great photographic skills were required, though the photos do show good artistic composition. Elsie had artistic skill, and had even worked for a few months in a photographer's shop retouching photographs. But the girls probably did no retouching on these photos. The simplest of means, just cut-out drawings of fairies stuck on the shrubbery, was all that was required to dupe gullible and predisposed minds like those of Arthur Conan Doyle, Geoffrey Hodson, and Edward Gardner. Many of the copies of these photos which have been circulated have been suspected of having been "improved" by retouching. This certainly may be true of the photos being prepared for publication in books, the desire being for the clearest possible result on the printed page. However, those who say the pictures are "too good" to have been taken by teenage amateur photographers, are showing an unwarranted prejudice, not consistent with the facts revealed by analysis of the original photos. Some have claimed to see a slight "blurring" of the fairy images, when, in fact, the fairies are more sharply defined than the girl's images.

On the matter of Conan Doyle's gullibility, Gilbert Chesterton said ...it has long seemed to me that Sir Arthur's mentality is much more that of Watson than it is of Holmes.

Kiss of the Green Fairy

When sundown spreads its hyacinth veil
Over Rastaquapolis
It’s surely time for an absinthe
Don’t you think, my son?
Five o’clock Absinthe-Raul Ponchon

I haven’t read an Ann Rice or Poppy Z. Brite book in dog's years, nor do I consider myself to be a Goth, or a vampire freak. These are things I relate to the consumption of Absinthe. But-its not always been that way. Absinthe is just another of the myriad of things that I find historically interesting. The actual history and how it has been perceived and been a part of history is more tempting to me than the actual elixir.

The consumption of absinthe is more of a ritual experience than a simple drink. Served with the addition of sugar and cold water through a specially pierced silver spoon, its green color is quite lovely. All true absinthes are bitter to some degree (due to the presence of absinthin, extracted from wormwood). The classic French absinthe ritual involves placing a sugar cube on a flat perforated spoon, which rests on the rim of the glass containing a measure or “dose” of absinthe. Iced water is then very slowly dripped on to the sugar cube, which gradually dissolves and drips, along with the water, into the absinthe, causing the green liquor to louche (“loosh”) into an opaque opalescent white as the essential oils precipitate out of the alcoholic solution. Usually three to four parts water are added to one part of 68% absinthe.

Historically, true absintheurs used to take great care in adding the water, letting it fall drop by single drop onto the sugar cube, and then watching each individual drip cut a milky swathe through the peridot-green absinthe below. Seeing the drink gradually change color was part of its ritualistic attraction. No other drink is traditionally consumed with such a carefully calibrated kind of ceremony. It’s part of what lends absinthe its drug-like allure (for instance, one talks about the dose of absinthe in the glass, a term you’d never use with whisky or brandy).

From all historical evidence, it seems that absinthe was almost always drunk like this – even the poorest working man, in the roughest bar or café, would prepare his absinthe slowly and carefully. It was seldom drunk neat (except by the kind of desperate end-stage alcoholics who were also drinking ether or cologne); the water was always added slowly not just sloshed in; ice was never added to the glass. The water added to the absinthe dose must always be iced, as cold as possible.

The origins of absinthe lie in Val-de-Travers, Switzerland where it was first concocted as an elixir/tincture to cure what ailed you. It took off with the smart set in Paris in the early 19th and 20th century and made its way to America among the artists and writers whose romantic associations still linger in today’s popular culture. So popular was it that lawmakers portrayed it as a dangerously addictive, psychoactive drug; the chemical thuione blamed for the most deleterious effects. Courts throughout the world ached to find a reason to ban the stuff and in 1906 a Swiss laborer gave them all the reason they needed.

During lunch on August 28, 1905, Jean Lanfray consumed five litres of wine, six glasses of cognac, one coffee laced with brandy, two crème de menthe, and two glasses of absinthe after eating a sandwich. Surprise, surprise-he returned home extremely drunk and angry, and drank another coffee with brandy. He then asked his wife to polish his shoes for him. When she refused, Lanfray retrieved a rifle and shot her once in the head, killing her instantly. His two children heard the noise and ran into the room, where Lanfray shot and killed both of them as well. He then shot himself in the head. He was discovered the next day by police after gunfire was reported from Lanfray’s house. Lanfray, still conscious, was discovered hunched over the bodies of his wife and children. After being taken to a hospital, Lanfray eventually recovered and was convicted of murder and sentenced to a life sentence. This was exactly what lawmakers had been looking for- never mind that he’d drunk up nearly all the other spirits in the village. The Lanfray case received an astonishing amount of coverage, especially by the temperance movement. Swiss law decided in March of 1906 that absinthe was to blame for the outrage, and passed a bill outlawing it, which trickled to every other European country (sans England and Spain) and the United States by 1915.

Flash to and astonishing nearly eighty years later, as countries in the EU have began to reauthorize manufacture and sale of the lovely liquor. Recently, two new brands have come onto the market in the U.S.-though they are only available in New England. On my next trip north I’m going to pick up a bottle of Lucid so I can meet the green fairy and judge all the falderal for myself.

Qu'ils Mangent de la Brioche!

I've always wondered what Marie Antoinette must have been thinking when she uttered these cold words. She truly couldn't have been so foolish! It has been suggested that her intention wasn't as cynical as is generally supposed. French law required bakers to sell loaves at fixed prices and fancy loaves had to be sold at the same price as basic breads. This was aimed at preventing bakers from selling just the more profitable expensive products. The let them eat brioche (a form of cake made of flour, butter and eggs) would have been a sensible suggestion in the face of a flour shortage as it would have allowed the poor to eat what would otherwise have been unaffordable. It's rather a mouthful, so to speak, but if the phrase had been reported as 'let them buy cake at the same price as bread' we might now think better of the French nobility.

Alas for poor Marie.

Anywhoo-This past weekend I attended an 'art wake' as part of Eyedrum's amazing Dead Flowers show. I missed the actual procession from beautiful, historic Oakland Cemetary, but I've heard it was fantastic. My friend Susan made this cake. It is AMAZING. So much so that I hardly dare share it as I hope it becomes a signature creation of my own. Savory cake-lord what could be better.But, my teachers in primary school said it's good to share, and I always got satisfactory marks in that column, so why change things now. Please do enjoy.

Susan Cipcic's Rosemary-Lemon Cake

Serves: 6

Preparation time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp rosemary, fresh or dried
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
½ cup sugar
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup plain non-fat yogurt
½ tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp almond extract
1 large egg
1 large egg white
2 tsp grated lemon rind
¼ cup currants or raisins [I used golden raisins, chopped]
Cooking spray
3 tbsp lemon juice
1 cup confectionary sugar

Preparations:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine first 5 ingredients in a bowl; set aside. Combine the ½ cup sugar and olive oil in a large bowl; beat at high speed of a mixer for 2 minutes. Add yogurt, extracts, egg & egg white; beat for 1 minute. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed until well-blended. Fold in rind & currants or raisins. Pour batter into a 9-inch springform pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until golden and cake springs back when touched lightly in center.

While cake is baking, combine confectionary sugar with 3 tbsp of lemon juice. If it is too thick, add some drops of water until it is a desired consistency. Pierce cake lightly with a fork several times.

Spoon glaze over cake.
Cool on a wire rack.
Eat.

Remember to be a good little child and share!

Klimt- The Austrian Cometh

Thank GOD New York City is the city that never sleeps. Okay-so that’s a bunch of whooey they close way too early, but a girls got to hope. Especially since I'm going to be there in just about a month and my "must see art exhibits" list is growing exponentially. In my various “good lord I need a break from work” moments today I wandered upon a little snippet somewhere that mentioned the first museum retrospective of the work of Gustav Klimt to be held in the United States. And its going on right now! In New York! Guess what I’m going to see when I’m there in a month. You’re dang right. Whoo-hoo.

Besides paintings and drawings, the exhibition contains vintage documentary material, from letters and photographs to personal effects, such as the artists cuff links and personal seal. Not that seeing 8 of his paintings and over 120 of his sketches up close and personal wouldn’t be amazing-but apparently the Neue Galerie which is hosting the exhibition has re-created the interior of the receiving room from Klimt’s studio at Josefstadler Strass 21, Vienna. Including the original furnishings designed by Josef Hoffman, and based on the original floor plans and a 1912 photograph. The installation will apparently be accompanied by music of some of Klimts personal favorites. No doubt some Mahler will be played.

So-do you suppose I can find a way to get completely out of work and training when my job sends me to New York in December? I’ve got so many things to see while I’m there. So far the list contains the found Courbet at the Metropolitan, this amazing show, an odd little sculpture show at Jack Shainman’s gallery by my dark darling Nick Cave called “Soundsuits.”

Go see the show. Can't wait to check out this gallery:

Neue Galerie New York
1048 5th AveNew York, NY 10028
(212) 628-6200

Look Skyward

“I love the clouds… the clouds that pass…up there… up there… the wonderful clouds!”
-The Stranger, Charles Baudelaire

I try to stop and look towards the heavens as often as possible. Its like instant meditation for my eyes. The sight of a beautiful sky lightens my heart and calms my soul. It makes me breathe in deeply and savor life, even if just for a second.

Apparently, I am not the only one who feels this way (not that I believed I was). There is actually a Cloud Appreciation Society. Their Mission Statement is truly lovely, here's just a snippet:

WE BELIEVE that clouds are unjustly maligned and that life would be immeasurably poorer without them.

We think that they are Nature’s poetry, and the most egalitarian of her displays, since everyone can have a fantastic view of them.

Clouds are so commonplace that their beauty is often overlooked. They are for dreamers and their contemplation benefits the soul. Indeed, all who consider the shapes they see in them will save on psychoanalysis bills.

I realized yesterday that I have a few favorite spots that I always stop at and look up whenever I am near them. There's a church steeple near my local library that seems to simply attract a beautiful sky behind it at all times. There's a restaurant patio where I nearly always see what I like to call "the hand of God" clouds-those absolutely beautiful cummulus clouds like the ones that Maxfield Parish captures in nearly all of his work.

There are skies that are burned in my memory and part of who I am. A sunrise when I was 16, an afternoon on a balcony in Rome, the clouds through the redwoods in Muir Woods. A night alone on a beach, the low clouds in my sisters backyard in Seattle.

They are illusive things, clouds. Tricks of light and vapor. Sometimes easy to photograph and paint, sometimes completely impossible to capture accurately.

One thing they almost always are is beautiful. Don't forget to look up. If you don't, you'll be depriving yourself of one of this worlds most beautiful, simple pleasures.

Rufino Tamayo's Trash Treasure 'Tres Personajes'

It's not often that I just cut and paste something into my blog-but this story from Bloomberg was just too well written and it goes to so many things I'm all about-dumpster diving for one-and fine art for another. Enjoy-and imagine this happening to you.

Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo's ``Tres Personajes,'' a 1970 painting vibrating with reds, yellows and purples, may fetch as much as $1 million at a Sotheby's auction on Nov. 20, the work's first public viewing since Elizabeth Gibson spied it in a mound of garbage on a Manhattan sidewalk.

Gibson, a tall, blond 53-year-old resident of the Upper West Side, went out for a cup of coffee on a Saturday morning in 2003. She spotted a large painting poking out from among the garbage bags left on the sidewalk on West 72nd Street. In her pre-caffeinated haze, she kept walking.
``I'm all about de-cluttering, so why was I going to take it home?'' she recalled in an interview.
A few minutes and a cup of coffee later, Gibson returned to the trash pile, saw the painting and reconsidered.

``I saw it was a big painting,'' she said. ``It needed a sleek, large apartment.''
Gibson, who works in radio and as a writer, said her apartment, which she shared with a roommate, was neither sleek nor large. Also, the chipped silver frame looked cheap. Despite these reservations, she lugged the 4-foot-wide painting back to her apartment and hung it on the living room wall.

Thus began a lengthy and at times anguished journey to discover the Tamayo's history. Gibson said she contacted lawyers, art dealers and friends in an effort to determine whether the painting was anything special. Once she learned that Tamayo was among the most important and valuable Mexican artists -- and that her colorful painting with three abstract figures had illustrated the cover of a 1974 Tamayo monograph by journalist Emily Genauer -- she hid the painting in her closet, creating a false wall using plywood and a shower curtain.

Burden, Not Blessing

At this point, the painting was more of a burden than a blessing. ``I kept researching but I knew I had to do something,'' she said.

In 2005, Gibson watched a PBS television program about missing artworks, part of the ``Antiques Roadshow'' series, that featured the Tamayo. Sotheby's expert August Uribe, who hosted the segment, explained that ``Tres Personajes'' had been stolen in 1987 and missing for almost 20 years. The painting's owners, a Houston couple whom Sotheby's declined to identify, had purchased the painting at the auction house in 1977 for $50,000. It later went missing from a storage facility in Texas.

The FBI and Houston police had investigated, according to Sotheby's, but the painting vanished until Gibson's discovery.

``I remember my heavy heart,'' said Gibson, who liked Uribe's spunk and lack of art-world pretense when she saw him on TV. ``Why am I not bringing it in?''

`Mystery Woman' Calls

Gibson contacted Uribe, initially identifying herself as ``Mystery Woman.'' She visited him at Sotheby's with her minister and the next day took him to her apartment, where she pulled out piles of clothing from her closet and revealed the Tamayo.

Uribe immediately recognized the painting, with its rich palette and Tamayo's signature rough surface, made with sand and ground marble dust mixed into the paint. Uribe wrapped the painting in cardboard, gingerly placed it in a taxi van and returned to Sotheby's headquarters.
Sotheby's contacted the FBI, Uribe said, and soon called the owner, who was stunned and decided to sell the following day. The painting had been a gift from her now dead husband.
The theft ``was such an emotional trauma,'' Uribe said. ``She had emotionally divorced herself.''

Tamayo, who died in 1991, remains one of the most sought- after Latin American artists. His 1955 ``America (Mural)'' fetched a record $2.59 million at Christie's International in New York in 1993. Christie's also has a major Tamayo for sale next month, the 1945 ``Trovador,'' a jaunty guitarist estimated to go for as much as $3 million.

After finding a million-dollar painting in the trash, Gibson has reaped some gain herself. She collected a $15,000 reward from the owner as well as an undisclosed fee from Sotheby's. Her experiences have inspired her to begin writing a book. Uribe, meanwhile, is focused on the sale in November.

``We have high hopes for the picture,'' he said. ``The sky's the limit.''

Picasso's Weeping Woman- Dora Maar

Dora Maar is usually depicted as a fragmented, sharp-toothed, tortured soul in the paintings of Picasso. And maybe she was. When they first met in the Café Les Deux Magots in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, Picasso was attracted by her classic beauty, and by the fact that she sat, smiling, cutting her fingers and the table at which she sat. Picasso was so moved by her bizarre behavior that he kept her bloody gloves and exhibited them on a shelf in his apartment.


This meeting was the beginning of a nine year relationship between the two artists, and some of Picasso’s most memorable, if not disturbing work. When they were first together they inspired each other to create beautiful work-her in photography, and him with such great images as Guernica (inspired by the devastating bombing of the town by the Fascists). As their love began to sour and Maars mental state to deteriorate against the rocks of Picasso’s sadistic indifference he created the Weeping women series-featuring of course, his lover Dora Maar.

Dora kept all of his paintings of her for herself until her death in 1997 at the age of 90. They were souvenirs for their extraordinary love affair which made her famous forever. For him she was the "woman in tears" in many aspects. She suffered from his moods during their love affair. Picasso sent Dora to his friend, the psychiatrist Jacques Lacan, who treated her with psychoanalysis. Also she hated the idea that in 1943 he jilted her for a new lover, Francoise Gilot (mother of Paloma).

In Paris, still occupied by the Germans, Picasso left to her a drawing of 1915 as a good-bye gift in April 1944; it represents Max Jacob his close friend who had just died in the transit camp of Drancy after his arrest by the Nazis. He also left to her some still lifes, and a house at Ménerbes in Provence-which he had received in exchange for one of his paintings. She hated the house, and while it was his gift to her, Picasso and Francoise lived there for a time in spite of her.

But there was a time when he loved her in a way that only Picasso could love a woman. She was his “secret muse” and as usual it came through in his work. It is not often we are able to see these rare pieces when their love was new and Picasso portrayed her as a beauty rather than a harpy. Currently, Sotheby’s is releasing images of Tete de femme, Dora dated from 1941. This bronze sculpture depicts her sans the tears and jagged teeth, without the gnashing claws and red gaping mouth. Tete de femme, Dora is almost sanguine and serene-her wide eyes, softly curving ears and tiny rosebud mouth. Sotheby’s expects the piece to sell for $20 to $30 million dollars.

Ah, to have all the money in the world. Lets just hope that whomever does buy the piece doesn’t lock it away in their private collection. It would truly be a shame not to be able to view this piece beside the Weeping women and gain perspective on the woman who gave Picasso so much inspiration.

"Nude Woman Reclining" Rediscovered and Revealed

A few years ago my mother passed along to me a collection of prints that she bought at an estate sale. Centered on women in fine art, in her lovely Southern accent she warned “there are a couple of dirty ones in there as well”. Needless to say I was more than a little interested to see what my mother considered dirty. No doubt, she was referring to Gustave Courbet’s “Origin of the World” – the controversial cornerstone of the French painter’s career.

Created in 1866, and now a resident of the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, this still somewhat stunning portrait of a, how shall we say, “Le blason” (a delicate paean to the “most beautiful treasure of the female anatomy) still draws scandalized gasps even in the 21st century. Several of the paintings previous owners kept it concealed. A Hungarian baron hung it in his bathroom, while the celebrated psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan bought it and hid it behind a panel that he uncovered for guests.

Courbet’s work is drawing a new round of gasps these days, but for different reasons. Until recently art experts believed that another of his salacious works ‘Nude Woman Reclining’ had been lost, maybe even destroyed, a casualty of Red Army or Nazi looting in Hungary during World War II. Fortunately for us, they were wrong.

Previously owned by the same collector who hung ‘Origin of the World’ in his loo (Baron Ferenc Hatvany) the painting was stolen from the bank vault where the baron had put them for safekeeping during WWII. The baron, who was Jewish, survived the war but lost all of his art, the largest collection in Hungary. He tracked down and bought back some of his lost works, including ‘The Origin of the World,’ but he never knew what happened to the other Courbet nude.

During the war, 'Nude Woman Reclining' wound up in the possession of a Soviet soldier who gave it as a gift to a doctor in Bratislava (part of Slovakia). The painting hung in the doctor’s home for decades until his death. His family then attempted to sell it. After negotiations and a reward of nearly three-quarters of a million dollars to the doctor’s family, the painting was returned two years ago to the baron’s heirs.

Currently the painting is appearing at a special show at the Grand Palais in Paris through January 28th. Then it will come to New York and be shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from Feb. 27 to May 18.

As the Musee d’Orsay is actively seeking funding to purchase the painting for its collection, it looks like another trip to New York is in order.

“Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”

When was the last time you were in the reference room of your local library or university? No doubt, not as often as in years past thanks to the Internet. I don’t remember the last time I referred to an encyclopedia. But, I still love those giant tomes full of “famous quotes”. It has always amazed me that these things get written down. Who was Bartlett and did he really spend his time putting together the best quotes ever uttered? And who made him the judge above all others? Don’t get me wrong. I find them fascinating. I have learned to love and admire certain politicians, artists, philosophers and such by just their witticisms.

One-hundred and fifty-three years ago one of my favorite and most quotable authors was born- Oscar Wilde. Brilliant, viper tongued, terribly kind, self-deprecating and self-destructive, Wilde is considered to be one of the wittiest men ever borne in England. The fact that the foul-mouthed Liam Gallagher (of Oasis fame) is mentioned in the same breath as Mr. Wilde is seriously disconcerting. But, I feel a bit better when also adjacent to Wilde is Stephen Frye (who coincidentally played Wilde in a film several years ago).

So, a happy birthday to you Mr. Wilde! Thank you for all your truisms. I leave you with a few of my favorites.

"It is absurde to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious."

“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”

“Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”

“I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.”

Magnificent Jewels…Indeed

Oh to have all the money in the world. I would be kind to my fellow man. I would do good for others, share, be kind. Help kitties and bunnies, cure world hunger, avoid crooked politicians and garden for good. I wouldn’t become a snotty, manicured charlatan and swan off to Biarritz to play cards with the hoi-polloi. I promise I wouldn’t.

Jins trapped in bottles in the deserts of Egypt and Saudi Arabia…are you listening?

If I had all the money in the world I’d be front and center this coming week in the great halls of Christies Auction House in New York. I’ve been reading Manon Lescaut of late, so maybe I’m primed to be taken advantage of by the French and their great ability to make even the most decadent look stylish. With that in mind, I’ve fallen in love with a little beauty created by the House of Boucheron that goes up on the auction block this coming week. First- it’s a Boucheron. Enough said? The audacious 28 year old Frederic was the first jeweler to open premises on the Place Vendome in 1858. Luxurious and utterly opulent, decorated with crystal chandeliers and velvet fabrics, his boutique quickly attracted a prestigious clientele. His experiments with diamond engraving are simply breathtaking, and were the precursor of the “nature” style that he created by using snakes and other symbolic animal figures of the 19th Century Art Nouveau period.

Simple but intricate, like the very subject itself, this divine Art Nouveau bumblebee brooch is adorned with diamonds, sapphires and enamel. Valued at a paltry $60,000 to $80,000 dollars its a bargain of the day in my humble opinion.

Oh, this piece must have such a history. Where has she been? What balls and fine restaurants and soirees has she attended? What envious eyes have been cast upon her graceful beauty? The unknowable history of the piece makes it more appealing to me than its monetary value.

Come on-give a girl a present. You know you want to.

By the way, should you feel so moved, there’s also a pretty scrumptious Belle Époque diamond aigrette bandeau by Cartier (estimated to auction for $450,000 to $650,000) that would look divine on my cat Meshinko.

Sigh. A girl can dream. And with creations like these, what sweet dreams.

Book Autopsies

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I love books-any book. I love the smell of them, the feel of them, the fonts, the paper, the words that tie them together, even most of the people who are brave enough to write them-even twaddle. I hate going into a bookstore and seeing someone slamming books on and off shelves. I literally shudder when I see people mistreating books. Not being a fan of small human beings I hesitate to compare them to babies-but they are-they are like delicate things to be treated with caution and love.

So, the concept of someone taking a scalpel to an old tome to make it into a piece of art should raise my hackles? No? Well-I thought it would but I’ve found a considerable exception to the rule. I can barely find a way to explain the amazing work that Brian Dettmer is doing. They are called Book Autopsies.

I’ve tried to find more information on the artist, but there’s not much on the Internet about him other than lots of images of his work, which in my opinion is a harmonious balance between the collage work of Joseph Cornell and the intricate perfection of a Hieronymus Bosch painting.

Brian Dettmer-I’m looking for you. I want to own some of your work. I want to see inside your head. I am officially fascinated.

Very superstitious, writings on the wall....

A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere. --Groucho Marx

Yes, I am actually pretty superstitious. I admit it. I embrace it.

I'm 36 and I lift my feet when I go over railroad tracks.
I cross myself when a hearse drives past me.
I throw spilled salt over my shoulder.
I don't walk under ladders.
I get the willies when a broom falls.
I never put my shoes on the bed.

I started thinking about superstitions the other day when I was out shopping and watched a man take four umbrellas from a Marshall's store, walk outside and open them to see which he liked best. Nobody jumped him. Nobody yelled "STOP THAT WILEY UMBRELLA THIEF!". It was just like he was stopping to tie his shoes. He made his selection, went back inside and made his purchase. In these cynical, wary-eyed days I thought it was fairly amazing to see that our superstitions are still so prevalent. We might not believe in the words of the press-but dangit, we're not breaking a mirror in fear of 7 years bad luck.

These things seem so amazingly silly. I mean, do you know anybody who has ever broken his mothers back by stepping on a crack? Have you seen someones car break down after they said "this thing never breaks down"? But still we do it. It's like blinking-it just is.

I honestly think that we're a bit superstitious whether we're willing to admit it or not. I've never gotten the "evil eye" but I think I'd know it if I saw it. And, I'd probably follow suit by going "phoo, phoo" while spitting between my pointer and middle finger of my right hand. Hey, just being cautious. Why the heck not.

I think the thing about superstition is that it's not provable. Why did Uncle Jethro loose his job? Not because he was a total slacker, or the stock market plunged. It must certainly be because his daughter touched his shoe with a broom while sweeping the kitchen.

Why did I get a raise last week? Because I had an itchy palm.

See-good or bad. There's a superstition for everything.
So, I admit it. I'm superstitious. Why not? If there's fate, then maybe there's superstition. Meanwhile, I'll continue to terrify my passengers by lifting my feet while going over railroad tracks. Chill. I haven't killed anybody...yet.

Resume for a Season

Fall is here, and I'm far from down at the mouth about it. I, unlike many others find that the dying days of summer and approaching of winter is my most vibrant time of the year. While others are knocking up their daily dosage of Prozac, fall seems to bring an absolute calm to me. Maybe it means I should go live in Portland. When I tried to explain my "spring blues" to my psychiatrist this year he gave me a quizzical look, and said "I should write a paper on you." I love that. Someday I'll grow up to be a lab rat.

A friend just called and said he'd procured a book for me at a Salvation Army in Gastonia, North Carolina. It's "Might As Well Live" about Dorothy Parker. I've been meaning to buy the book forever. Thank you Clay! Thank You Gastonia Goodwill!

In tribute to my favorite time of the year, and my favorite melancholy mistress of dark prose, I give you this poem. Smile when you read it, it makes life look much brighter.

Resume

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

When Art Inspires Literature

There is a story which has been handed down through literary history, which may be an urban myth, and might well be fact. It is that of a nightmare sparked by a famous (or rather, infamous) painting by Henri Fuseli upon the opium addled mind of Mary Shelley which led her to create the story of Frankenstein.

Years ago, I saw a rather bad film called “Haunted Summer” which was based loosely upon the relationship between Shelley, her husband and Byron. The painting by Fuseli looms throughout the film and eventually causes the nightmare which spawns Frankenstein. This was my first encounter with the famous painting and my first with the incubus, which I have since often mixed-up with the other soul sucking demon, the female of the type; the succubus. So remember boys and girls- incubus is a boy, succubus is a girl. Both are nasty little buggers who suck your soul out and rape you in the night.

So-other than a nasty nightmare, how do the two intersect? Interestingly enough, the artist is said to have had a very odd affair with one Mary Wollstonecraft- Shelly’s mother. Seems that Wollstonecraft fell utterly in love with the married Fuseli, and she poured her platonic love over him like the waves of a turbulent storm. So enamored with him was she, that she approached
Fuseli’s wife with a proposal. Since her love for him was so utterly platonic, wouldn’t it be lovely if the three of them lived together? With that, Fuseli had to end their odd unconsummated affair. Heartbroken, Mary Wollstonecraft went on to marry someone else. Then she died giving birth to the girl who would become Mary Shelley.

Nineteen years later, back in Fuseli's homeland of Switzerland, Mary Shelley penned Frankenstein as an exercise in Gothic style. The day of Gothic novels was past by then, but Frankenstein became the most famous Gothic novel of them all.

There are two versions of this painting-once much more sinister than the other. In the first, the incubus seems almost munchkin-like, and there is less terror in the scene overall. In the second, it seems that Fuseli delves deep into horror for inspiration. The eyes of the horse are stricken with fear, and the face of the incubus is much more sinister.

As a final tasty little note; Sigmund Freud was known to have an engraving of this work in his Vienna apartment in the 1920s.
Interesting, eh?

Through Smoke

[French parfum, from Old Italian parfumo, from parfumare, to fill with smoke : par-, intensive pref. (from Latin per-, per-) + fumare, to smoke (from Latin f m re, from f mus, smoke).]

Each day as part of my ablutions, my favorite thing is to choose the scent that will make up my day. Before I choose my clothes, before I poke my head out the window to see what Mother Nature has in store for me, I choose the perfume that will be the pleasure of my olfactory senses for the day.

Coco Chanel once said, “A woman who doesn’t ear perfume has no future.”

Chanel was one of the first perfumes that I had the privilege of knowing. I smell it and think of the expensive little square bottle, and my mother running the glass stopper across her elegant collarbone and behind her ears. It was femininity to me-what it meant to be a woman. So, of course, I wanted to wear it-NOW-at seven years old. Of course, it was inappropriate for a child. For that matter, if what some of the fashionista’s and those in the know seem to believe, I’ve another 20 years before it will be appropriate for me to wear the sultry scent. Just thinking of this makes me recall Holly Golightly standing at the diamond counter at Tiffany's saying "I simply adore diamonds darling, they're wonderful on older women, but not right for me, you understand."

If you think about it, I’m sure you can conjure a few people in your life, maybe someone long past, maybe someone you only met for a second, with the memory of their perfume. If you want to be irreplaceable-be unforgettable. There are few memories that can be locked away deeper than those we associate with a distinct scent.

There are three or four perfumes in my arsenal. I sometimes layer them, but I like the purity of one complex perfume. I’m sad to say that my taste in perfume is much like most of the things in my life-terribly expensive. Earlier this year I was in a famous department store in New York City and a lovely girl waved a scented piece of cardstock near my nose and I was trapped, like a deer in headlights. “I’ll take it!” I huskily replied. She was taken aback at my instant response, though I doubt I’m the first or last who will have it. Sadly-I left the store without anything other than the little piece of scented cardstock and a deep yearning in my heart. My picky little olfactory sense had betrayed me again. I had fallen rock hard in love with the most expensive perfume LITERALLY made- Clive Christians’ No. 1. The bloody stuff comes in a hand-cut Baccarat beaker with a carat diamond in the 18K gold collar of the bottle. Priced at a modest $2,150.00 an ounce I figure when I win the lottery I’ll just fill a bucket with the stuff and slosh around in it till I get pruney.

Meanwhile, I’ll have to be pleased (which I most certainly am) with my few favorites. My scents of choice are as follows; Angelique Encens by Creed, George Sand by Perfumiers Historique, Voleur de Roses by L’Artisian Parfumeur and Mitsouko by Guerlain. As I said while walking down Park Avenue in New York after buying my first bottle of George Sand, “I smell like money”. No 50 Cent-I will NOT give you the credit for that quote!

It may sound utterly conceited to anyone who finds no value in the art form of scent. My perfumes remind me that each day a little grace must fall into your life to keep you truly alive. It assures me that if nothing else, while some people think that "luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.”

Small Things Can Have Big Histories

A few years ago I stumbled upon a little book in my local library that captured my imagination from beginning to end. I’d been to the British Museum a year or so earlier and seen the vase, but it didn’t stick in my mind as a thing of astonishing beauty or rarity. Like many of the items in that colossal building, their majesty is usually marked only with a small, discrete card with little or any background. You could be looking at the hand of God himself, and unless some docent or passer-by happened to point it out, you’d as likely as not pass it by unnoticed.

The fact that it is a beautiful piece of work aside it is the history of the Portland Vase that intrigues me. It has “survived” (a term that must be used loosely here) a deranged vandal in 1845, and the bombing of the British Museum by the Germans. It has been literally smashed to bits and rebuilt from the ground up twice. Lord knows how many times it has avoided complete destruction.

The 9 ¾-inch glass vase is a deep opaque violet blue-nearly black, and is overlaid with white glass in which scenes of mythological figures are cut. Notice the resemblance to Wedgwood? Yeah-there’s a reason for that—we’ll get there. While renowned for its beauty, the meaning of the decorative scenes carved into its sides have never been fully ascertained (though highly speculated and written about), and its origins remain utterly mysterious.

Scholars do not agree on who owned the vase in ancient Rome, and even its emergence during the Renaissance period is shrouded in mystery. It was said to have been discovered in a sarcophagus outside Rome in the early 1580’s, but there seems to be no documentation of its unearthing at this time. By the early 17th century it was owned by Cardinal Francesco Maria Borbone del Monte, who died in 1626, and whose heir Alessandro, promptly sold the family heirloom to Cardinal Antonio Barberini. The vase remained in their palace in Italy, along with the rest of the Barberini’s fantastic collection of paintings and sculptures for 150 years. Much to the chagrin of Italians everywhere, the vase was next acquired by a Scottish architect living in Italy named James Byres. Byres had a reputation-not all of it good. Most of the time he made his gelt by giving rich Americans and British subjects tours of the region, serving as docent, guide and expert. Not being a man of settled financial means, it is not surprising that Byres sold it to a Sir William Hamilton.

Hamilton was WILD about Roman vases. Sent them home by fairly the crate-load. Literally. When he made the hugely expensive purchase (basically on a whim) he quickly realized that getting his acquisition home would be a bit of a challenge. Byres of course had the solution, and went about getting the false documents and provenance that Hamilton would need to ship home the piece without having to pay a kings-ransom in duties, and of course-that would keep the Italian government from ceasing its exit from their shores.

So far, the vase was just called a vase, sometimes the Barberini vase. It was not until 1784, when Margaret, the duchess of Portland, saw the vase. She was instantly in love, and sought the piece for her collection. Sadly, she was unable to enjoy her new vase for long. She died on July 17, 1785 less than a year after she first saw the work. This is when the breaking begins. In 1810 a friend of Margaret’s son, the duke of Portland, broke off the base of the vase. He decided not to take any other chances with it and lent it to the British Museum, where it presumably would be safe and cold be enjoyed by a wide audience.

No such luck.

In 1845, a young man named William Mulcahy who had been drinking for several days before stumbling into the British Museum for a tour, grabbed an object, shattered the case holding the vase and then smashed the vase. The onlookers were astonished, and frankly baffled as to his motive. Its never been ascertained as to what was going through his mind when he wreaked this destruction, and because British Law did not provide penalties for destroying items of high value, he was soon released after an anonymous person posted his bail. Needless to say the British Museum was a bit embarrassed, but rather than send a personal representative, they chose to send the Duke and his family a note about the smashing in which it pronounced the culprit mad. The vase has been restored three times in its known existence. After Mulcahy broke it into some 200 pieces, it was repaired by the museum’s John Doubleday, who was left with a little box of extra shards. Over time, the color of the glue that he used to piece the vase together changed colors and the Museum decided to have a restoration attempt made again. This time they hired James H.W. Axtell, who carefully broke it apart and repaired it again using transparent glue. He too had over a dozen chips left at the end of his restoration. Lastly, in 1986 Nigel Williams, the chief conservator of ceramics at the British Museum broke the vase and restored it with modern epoxy and other materials.

From the standpoint of art history, the vase is interesting as it has twice served as a major source of artistic inspiration. One, a copy created by Wedgwood, and the second a copy commissioned by Benjamin Richardson who offered 1000 pound prize for anyone who could duplicate the cameo work in glass. It took glass maker Philip Pargeter three years with the assistance of John Northwood (who did the engraving), to win the prize. This copy stands today in the Corning Glass Museum in New York.

This lovely piece remains in the Museum today, apart from three years (1929-32) when The Duke of Portland put the vase up for sale at Christies. The vase failed to make its reserve price, but was purchased in 1945 by the British Museum with the aid of a bequest from James Rose Vallentin.

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose

Some people believe that John Singer Sargent’s paintings are too perfect, too sweet, and too beautiful. I am not one of those people. I simply adore his work. If I had a month left of this life, and could choose, I think one of those days would be spent standing stock still on the creaky floors of the Tate Museum in London whiling away the precious minutes staring at his work.

One of the first you encounter-or that simply snatches out at you in that wonderful old place is Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, the title of which was lifted from the light-hearted lyrics of a popular song of the time.

The story of its birth is a lovely little one, first conceived in the magnificent garden of the Lavington Rectory in 1884 when Sargent was staying with the Vickers family. The idea (a purely fanciful one to be sure) was to capture, not the most perfect sunset, but the affect of the most perfect sunset has, in terms of color, shadows and light on a scene. But it was more than that. How about the artificial light of Chinese lanterns at the precise moment of twilight when lanterns and sun are at perfect equilibrium? Sargent was a strict follower of Impressionism-he painted exactly what he saw-not what his imagination wanted him to see. So, he painted for only minutes each day. Minutes.

He began by using a friend’s young daughter who was only 5 at the time as a model. They put a wig on her to lighten her hair and then propped the darling thing up as if she were lighting a Chinese lantern.

He worked on the picture, from September to early November 1885, and again at the Millets's new home, Russell House, Broadway, during the summer of 1886, completing it some time in October of that year. Each chance he could get; he would dress the children in white sweaters which came down to their ankles, over which he pulled the dresses which appeared in the picture. Even in the cold, he painted. When the roses in the garden gradually faded and died, he requisitioned artificial substitutes, which were affixed to the withered bushes.

The picture was bought for the Tate Gallery in 1887, under the terms of the Chantrey bequest, largely at the insistence of the Royal Academy President, Sir Frederic Leighton. A portrait by Sargent of Mrs. Barnard (1885), made at the same time as Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, is also in the Tate.

His work is beauty itself. If you have ever the chance to see it-please, do yourself the favor and do.