It's official, I'm OLD!

Did you know it's Dirty Dancing's 20th Anniversary? You do now...coming soon to a screen near you.

I sense a theme running through your work...

I was born in the 70s, LIVED the 80s, but secretly, I think my heart belongs to the early 60s. And I think it has to do with the clothes. You're shocked, I can tell. One of the unsung staples of the 20th century well-dressed man, a crisp, single-breasted suit of a pearly dove's breast was never done better service than by Cary Grant as the daredevil plutocrat-cum-adventurer Roger Thornhill in North by Northwest...



or rumpled with such phsyicality and insouisance as the ones Jean-Paul Belmondo seemed to wear in all his early 60s flicks. In this picture from Pierrot le Fou he wears a divine Prince of Wales check...



This photo is a still from OSS 117: Le Caire nid d'espions, the 2006 French espionage farce set in 1955 that I finally saw this past week. The star of the film, Jean Dujardin (pictured below), rocked the suit like he was discovering the new world, splitting the atom and landing on the moon all in one stride across the lobby of Cairo's best hotel. It made me yearn. Yes, Kramer, to answer your question, I YEARN! I yearn for a time when every man wore cuff links when he left the house. Is that so wrong?

If anyone is interested, Kilgour of Saville Row is doing a bespoke tour of the USA...grab a dude and drag him down to get his measurements taken!

DODGERTALK

Did you know Alyssa Milano has a blog about the Dodgers? NEITHER DID I! I have never been a fan of hers, not that I was overtly anti-Alyssa, but this is certainly a startling turn of events. That Justin Timberlake is such an early-adopter! I will certainly keep an eye on the blog and more importantly on the Blue Crew this year, as the LA Times and Sports Illustrated have both named them as likely to be in the world series this year. Watch this space.

I know what I'm getting Dominick Dunne for Christmas...

Dear Vanity Fair,

When A. M. Homes calls something "slightly naughty", I believe her. One of our more subversive modern authors, who has mentioned more than once in interviews that she had sexual feelings about her biological father when she first interacted with him as the result of a search for her biological parents, if SHE thinks something is indecent, I'm sure Tipper Gore is drafting a bill to put through congress right now to save us all from it.

So, you crazy content creators at vanityfair.com, looks like I fell for one of your nasty lexical tricks. You put Lilly Pulitzer and "naughty" as a tease for an article and I'm thinking sock garters and horsewhips for stockbrokers available in a flamingo pink or billiard table green. These ties are more like what Stanford Blatch from Sex and the City would use to distract you from the awful eyeglasses he wears.

I am willing to concede that maybe I don't have a firm grasp on what passes for modern masculinity these days (c.f. my comments about the inaugural issue of another Condé Nast publication, Men's Vogue on this blog.) Hell, I'd wear them if I didn't think women-in-ties a dangerously tricky sartorial move only best attempted by someone at the top of their game or in a Billy Idol video, which I admittedly at this juncture am not. But I do have what I will christen my McQueen Masculinity Maxim which when stated as a mathematical proof looks like this:

If Steve McQueen is THE MANLIEST MAN OF ALL TIME, then everything he does is masculine.

Ergo, if Steve McQueen would not do X, then X is not masculine.

Q. E. D. Masculinity can be determined by answering the question, "Would Steve McQueen do X?"

According to my calculations, that makes these ties less than virile. However, the Grande Dame of Palm Beach apparently disagrees with me. When Homes queries Pulitzer about her target market, "who is the Lilly man?", she responded thus:

"He's confident, of course. He's walking down the street wearing pink and green elephants," says 75-year-old Lilly Pulitzer Rousseau

I admit it would take nigh on to McQueenian confidence to do something like that.

What exactly does Lilly Pulitzer have on you, Graydon Carter?

Baby, you can drive MY car!

This pic I came across is from a promotion that's almost a year old and I don't even care. It's of one of my many Britboy crushes, Rupert Penry-Jones modeling for my lovely Aston Martin.
To quote Her Madgesty, as I am wont to do..."If I was a car, I’d be an Aston Martin." Give those guys in marketing a raise, they got me.

This is the photo I am sending with my Christmas cards this year. This is me and my lovely RPJ overlooking the Firth of Clyde, he in his lovely cashmere coat, me in my snuggy cable knit. We are so in love with the performance of our new Aston Martin!

A review of "Selected Poems"

Selected Poems

by Joseph Brodsky

Hrm. These poems are obviously translated from the Russian, and I wonder what kind of translation it was…literal, word for word, or did the translator take license to try and replicate the tone of the poem with out the precision of meaning. I guess I can’t just help but feel that I’m missing something here. THESE are the poems a man was exiled over? For what? Maybe I’m just too American, meaning I don’t question a person’s right to dissent, but there hardly seemed to be any criticism of the Soviet Regime AT ALL. There are some poems that deal with atomic power, boats, his exile. But most talk of nature, and the towns he has known, and maybe a few long-ago loves. Hardly the stuff to make you wanna expel him from your country.

More knowledge of context on my part probably would have increased my appreciation. This was admitedly an intro to Brodsky for me.

See more about Selected Poems

Look how gorgeous these are...

"'ere are oo?"

I've lost my passport, better said, I have TEMPORARILY mislaid it. I have been obsessing about it ever since I realized it's...not where I thought it was. It's a good thing too, cause if I had it I might not be able to keep myself from buying thisssss luxe passport cover from Smythson. As it is, I'm placing 4 orders with the universe (yes I've seen The Secret just like everyone else...)

1. Please help me find my passport before I'm supposed to go on the Scandinavian Cruise with my sisters this summer.


2. Please help me go on more fabulous vacations than I have been going on.


3. Please help me to be able to afford this passport cover and something smashing to put it in besides the fanny pack (a little too downmarket).
   
4. Please let me have a fabulous villa in Morocco and an architect husband that likes to surf like this chick.

Speed Stacking

My first cousin once removed is 10 and she is way into this. I think it's weird. Apparently Germans are way into it. The World Championships are in Denver in April.

Jerry Seinfeld=BIG BOWL OF MAC & CHEESE

What the hell did Jerry have to do with the Oscars last night? Even after he explained it, I still don't know. I do know that for my money, he was the best thing about the telecast. Firstly because he YAWNED during Al Snore's acceptance speech and was busted for it in front of a billion earthlings; the only snarkily subversive moment of the evening. Unfortunately, I am quite sure that he was yawning because of the animated cartoon characters and dance sequences that somehow the Oscars never seem to shake, and not as any gesture about Al's "most important moral issue of our time."

And what about his bit? Just listening to it suffused my body with warm feelings of remembrance for a time when Ellen DeGeneres wasn't considered to be a comedian; when there was "No Hugging, No Learning." Yea, those nine years of must see TV that now seem so far off, like the last time I ate a bowl of really good macaroni & cheese. Except, uh, I just ate some on Friday.

On a related note, here are the winning recipes of the Tillamook Mac & Cheese Contest 2006. Just in time for New Year's Resolutions...OH YES, I WILL COOK THEM ALL!!!!!!

You know how they always say, don't by clothes too small for you in the hopes that it will motivate you to lose weight because it never works? Well it ALWAYS worked for me. Until I decided to become a fatass.

Now that I'm deciding NOT to be a fatass, do you think I should buy this fanny pack (I cannot believe I just typed that phrase) to inspire me to work out?

What if I bought it as surrogate Official Liza Minnelli Tour paraphanalia?

Not the smartest thing in the world....

These are family friends. And they are loco.

Top Design

Well, what can be said. For being a 100% Project Runway derivative, this show is shockingly bad. Todd Oldham is no Tim Gunn, that's for sure. We have none of Sensei Gunn's prolific vocabulary, laser-like mentoring precison and genuineness. Instead we have faded hipster doof Oldham with a sing-song voice so lifeless it's frightening. I mean really, couldn't he just pantomime his instructions? I could not be more collectively annoyed by a group than the contestants that we are presented with here. I honestly don't want ANY of them to win. So the question becomes why am I watching? Ya got me there.

I do have to credit the show with introducing me to Kelly Wearstler's work. Well, maybe I knew it already, I just didn't know it was her. Apparently she's one of the major proponents of the Hollwood Glam ethos that was so hip in interior design circa 2004. I describe her point of view as how Vincente Minnelli would style his sets if he was shooting Mitford to Mussolini: the Life of Lady Diana Mosely in the 21st century. That doesn't keep me from wanting to have every party ever from now on for the rest of my life at the Viceroy, which she designed. Damn you, you ex-playmate turned "design superstar". You are now officially in the #2 slot of my Pantheon of Chicks I Love to Hate, right behind Sienna Miller, but above Chloë Sevigny....who used your wallpaper in her house....as seen in January's Home and Garden.

Now Jonathan Adler, I am COVETING your Muse pottery collection this season. Let's face it, you had me with the names: Misia Sert, Kiki de Montparnasse, Gala Dalí...and I WANT the Dora Maar vase (pictured).

A review of "Passionate Minds: The Great Love Affair of the Enlightenment, Featuring the Scientist Emilie du Chatelet, the Poet Voltaire, Sword Fights, Book Burnings, Assorted Kings,"

Passionate Minds: The Great Love Affair of the Enlightenment, Featuring the Scientist Emilie du Chatelet, the Poet Voltaire, Sword Fights, Book Burnings, Assorted Kings,

by David Bodanis

Emilie du Chatelet is a wonder of nature that sent her lover Voltaire into depression because she was SMARTER than him and he knew it. She didn’t try to show him up, she just was who she was. Where has this book been all my life, and how did I just hear about her for the first time. She’s my new #1 Girl Power Icon. Queen Elizabeth I, your majesty, after a 18 year reign over my heart, you’re bumped to #2.

And, amongst her other lovers, the Duc du Richelieu, aka the basis for Valmont in Choderlos de Laclos’ Liaisons dangereuses. DING DONG! If you’re a big 18th century ho like me, you’ll luvvvvvv this.

See more about Passionate Minds: The Great Love Affair of the Enlightenment, Featuring the Scientist Emilie du Chatelet, the Poet Voltaire, Sword Fights, Book Burnings, Assorted Kings,

That's Enough For Me.

Naked in the Marketplace: The Lives of George Sand

by Benita Eisler

This was a slim biography, easily digestible, not a large scholarly tome, which is a blessing and a curse. My criticisms for the author mainly come from the format. We learn (a summary of) what she knows, but not HOW she knows it. There is a small notes section at the end corresponding to minimal (less than five) footnotes throughout the text. Now believe me, I am not demanding the kind of intricate note system that has you keeping a finger in the notes section so you can jump back and forth between the text and the additional information at the back of the book. But it would be nice to know when she concludes, for example, that Sand’s father Dupin was not her biological father, whether that is authorial conjecture or common knowledge (at least amongst Sand scholars). For that fact there is no footnote, no way of following the scholarly trail, nothing. There is no doubt in my mind that Ms. Eisler is VERY knowledgeable about her subject, but her choice to largely remove her authorial imprint from the text has a novice “Sandiste” like me wondering how authoritative the work is.

I have long been interested in George Sand, but this is the first biography I have read about her. It will probably be my last, mainly because of Ms. Sand herself. I have a problem with people that absolutely live the life they want to live (at the expense of children) and then blame “class” and “society” when they themselves persist in behaving in a way that always end in drama and sadness.

See more about Naked in the Marketplace: The Lives of George Sand

Bizarre Love Triangle

All for Love: A Novel

by Dan Jacobson

I’ve often heard it said that one’s ability to take responsibility for one’s own actions is the highest indicator of self-esteem. Don’t tell that to the protagonists of this book. Certainly we the readers are entertained by their devastating choices, but it’s their inability to relent in the pursuit of the inevitable consequences that fascinates. I can only liken the behavior of these people to the current exploits of Britney Spears. However, I don’t think Ms. Spears is as enamored with the acting out of the dramatization of her own saga as much as Princess Louise and her erstwhile lover Mattachich. Once on top of the world, Britney is insistent on degrading herself, but in the pursuit of pleasure. For the lovers of this historical novel, pleasure never really comes into it.

I believe the book’s titular “love” was never part of their endgame (sorry to disappoint!). They are two united pilgrims of imagination, seeking to discover what lies beyond the strictures of class in Hapsburg Vienna. Once they find it, puzzlingly, they don’t stop. They continue on in an intractable gyre of indigence and affliction of their own making, only ending, in this life at least, in death. While on the one hand the reader marvels at their brazen, obscene commitment to finish what they audaciously start, one cannot help but ponder, was it all worth it?

See more about All for Love: A Novel

A review of "The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles"

The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles

by Martin Gayford

The precision with which this book is written is very impressive. There is so much detail in this book, the author presents us with the type of house linens that Vincent purchased to decorate the Yellow House in Arles. He can describe the contents of the house even to what pictures were hanging on which walls, and what chair was placed where. But the details don’t override the narrative. I knew next to nothing about van Gogh before reading this. I knew what everyone knows. He cut his ear off, and he painted sunflowers.

Who knew that Vincent was a bigtime reader, and even possibly a synesthete? Literature was as important to his work as color, but you’d never guess it just by looking at their subject matter. The author of this book teases out the influences and the symbolism behind his works. Yes, SYMBOLISM. And even though Vincent’s references may have been obscure, the author easily connects the dots for us. He can be my Art History 101 prof any time.

See more about The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles

A review of "Far from the Madding Crowd"

Far from the Madding Crowd

by John Schlesinger

JULIE CHRISTIE! TERENCE STAMP! ONE HELL OF A LONG MOVIE! And her hair never moves the whole time!

See more about Far from the Madding Crowd

Ruling Reversal

So as you will recall, I had a good belly laugh about the first issue of Men's Vogue. I didn't think it was going to fly...but now, well, let's just say I'm man enough to admit...those crazy kids just might be on to something. I was particularly taken by the penultimate issue with Sir Hugh Jackman on the cover.
Playboy may claim to be all about the articles, but this magazine really is. Flip inside and you've got a piece on Peter Beard's new book from Taschen, for example. And nary a female covermodel in sight...so far. In this Maximized world, that's an impressive editorial direction that really sets them apart. Well played.

Betcha can't eat just one...

I love you Pocky, oh yes I do.
I love you Pocky, and I'll be true.
When you're not near me, I'm blue.
Oh, Pocky I love you.