Friday, February 27, 2009

"Indeed, the familiar class action suit steals pencils from the girl scout. A ski lodge negotiates a prenuptial agreement with a stovepipe, because a ski lodge trades baseball cards with the chestnut related to a skyscraper. For example, a freight train defined by a food stamp indicates that an apartment building almost teaches a pompous squid. A bottle of beer trembles, or a barely cosmopolitan industrial complex throws the submarine at a fractured paper napkin. Indeed a pork chop defined by the razor blade makes a truce with a pork chop of the briar patch."

-this morning's SPAM, February 26, 2009

Wednesday, February 25, 2009


It was as though the little frog had just that minute leapt onto my lapel. Demantoid garnets in a totally fluid pavĂ© setting. Completely ALIVE. 

Tuesday, February 24, 2009


When I want to put it into my mouth then I know that it is correct. My tongue speaks directly to my eye.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Saturday, February 21, 2009


He had legs like two smoked hams. He wouldn't allow them to be seen on film because they were from his life in the CIRCUS.

Friday, February 20, 2009

"It must have been my brother's tone that set the woman off. I cannot say that this tone had nothing in it to offend. The woman looked across the table at my brother and told him that she could not help it, she just had to say that he was the most affected creature she had ever come across.
   
   That was her word; she called him a creature. She inflected the word by not inflecting it at all.
   
   She made a point to say it without style.
   
   That the woman from San Francisco had just had to say this to him did not seem to come as a surprise to Nicholas.
   
   'Of course, you can't help it,' my brother said to the woman. 'Of course, you have to say it.'
   
   I noticed, because there was no way not to, that Nicholas was surpassing the woman in flatness of voice. He was far surpassing her. I had thought until then that I had heard my brother speak in every voice he had, even voices he did not, but I had never heard the voice that he was using with the woman. I had not before heard speech so stripped of ornament.
   
   I told the woman that we had already seen the Scenes from the Life of the Virgin. I even called it that.
   
   'Sweetheart, she doesn't care what we've seen,' Nicholas said. He leaned forward, facing the woman across the table.
   
   'I expect you pride yourself  on being unaffected,' my brother said to the woman.
   
   'I do,' the woman said.
   
   'I don't,' my brother said. 'But I wonder all the time, who are people trying to fool, when they go through their lives just acting like themselves.'
   
    He paused because he had come to a pause. After the pause, he said, 'A little affectation now and then is just a little generosity.'"

Christopher Coe, I Look Divine, published in 1987

Thursday, February 19, 2009


It's when we lose the narrative that we become depressed. Without a story you have something which is much worse than nothing.

She leaves the fan behind on purpose. So that her mother can find it. So that she can be SAVED.

Yes. They stand there in the piazza and the birds LAND on them. It's disgusting.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009


It's a piece of nothing and I need to be rid of it.

"'One works best in one's own ambience,' she says, using a Vogueism. This includes her portrait by René Bouché, a wall papered with pictures: Callas, astronauts, Nureyev, Hepburn, print of Agnes Sorel portrait-one breast bared. 'I use these photos to explain things... like bias cut.'"
Diana Vreeland, She Sets the Fashion
Look Magazine, November 1966
produced by Patricia Coffin
photo by James H. Karales

"'One millimeter more? One millimeter less, hmm? That's all it takes, and the proportion would be lost,' says Mrs. Vreeland, demonstrating the perfection of detail that goes into fashion by gauging a pearl. 'Jewels? I love them-but not for myself. I prefer fantasie.' She wears white-cotton 'drugstore' gloves 'to keep the print from getting in my nails.'"
Diana Vreeland, She Sets the Fashion
Look Magazine, November 1966
produced by Patricia Coffin
photo by James H. Karales

"'Truman can write! Cecil can photograph!' she says, emphasizing the great nonfashion talent. 'I continuously woo and seduce.' Above she checks proofs with Truman Capote."
Diana Vreeland, She Sets the Fashion
Look Magazine, November 1966, 
produced by Patricia Coffin
photo by James H. Karales

"'Sassoon hair is sweeping the world,'says Diana Vreeland sweepingly to British designer-photographer Cecil Beaton, whose work she often uses in Vogue. Beaton wears tasseled cap for a laugh, Diana is in her classic sweater and skirt."
Diana Vreeland, She Sets the Fashion
Look Magazine, November 1966
produced by Patricia Coffin
photo by James H. Karales



"'The final run-through is IT. We've eliminated 60 costumes... chose this Monte-Sano ensemble, Mr. John's white felt for January...' Marisa Berenson models it in the current Vogue. 'The editors bring all their selections from the market to me, down to the last bracelet.'"
-Diana Vreeland, Look Magazine, November 1966
produced by Patricia Coffin
photo by James H. Karales

"'I choose each photo, read every word that goes into the magazine,'says Vreeland as she checks Irving Penn swimsuit photos. The four chairs were a present from Courréges."
-Diana Vreeland,Look Magazine, November 1966
produced by Patricia Coffin
photograph by James H. Karales  

"I'm very nearsighted, but one can see everything one wants too...hmm?" 
Diana Vreeland, She Sets the Fashion
Look Magazine, November 1966
produced by Patricia Coffin
photo by James H. Karales

Tuesday, February 17, 2009


When you are done with me I don't even want to know who I AM.

It had been decorated to within an inch of its LIFE.

She did not need to know how to spell. She was a BARONESS.

Willie (Whilhelmina Baker Anatopoulos) creates an army of Thierry Mugler Fem-bot dolls while wearing pieces from Marc Jacob's Spring 09' Ready to Wear.

red iris design

orange penstemon design

yellow iris design

jade green thistle design

apple green penstemon design

   "We had flat tires together and we ran out of gas together;
in some fundamental sense, we were always on the road, merrily on our way to nowhere in particular. Two of us liked dark meat and two of us liked light meat and together we made a chicken."

-Nora Ephron, Heartburn

Visually, I want it crispy on the outside and JUICY ON THE INSIDE.

I never responded to or even cared about the work until I saw the films and understood that she wanted to be obliterated. The polka dots for her are a means of OBLITERATION.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Thursday, February 12, 2009

"It was an odd place, that second storey of a private house, at 177 bis. The first floor sheltered a single, silent neighbor, Prince Alexander Bibesco. I used to look out sometimes and watch the beautiful red and gold hair of Princess Bibesco (née Helene Reyer, the first and most touching 'Claudinet' in Les Deux Gosses) go down the winding staircase like a torch flung down a well."


-Colette, My Apprenticeships and Music Hall Sidelights

If you turn the chicken upside down it will cook itself in its own self. It will fulfill its DESTINY.

On white it goes completely dead. But against that gray we can achieve a GLOW.

There is no reason for me to eat bad pie. It will only encourage him to make more. And then others will suffer.

A black car is too severe. One shouldn't even go NEAR a black car unless it's very very old and almost jade green.

When dawn comes on the mountain, you don't even know where you ARE. You fall through a hole in TIME.

He's a beast. A hairy ape. But he leaves my spine in a state of utter BLISS.

If we put wheels on it I think we can get financing. But I'm not sure. Do you HAVE wheels?

What she did is to take the natural protuberances of modern life and build them right into the body of the garment.

I think you should enjoy a nice moment with him and then move on.

Can it have the quality of macrame? Can it register as decoupage?

Oh you should have seen him. Pale gold on ice blue. Well, he was practically an ALBINO as a child!

What I would like for breakfast is two pieces of very buttery toast and a scalding hot cup of coffee with a small amount of cream. Do you feel that that is something you can do?

What I'm looking for right now has nothing to do with form or color. It has to do with TEXTURE.

It needs to be funny and sad at the same time.

It was as though her skin had been glazed..