Up with People

On January 16th, I will buy a ticket for to see Notorious. Petrova got wind of the thing ages ago, when she came across the set in New York. She asked a P.A. what scene they were filming; he replied, "the first time they hear 'Juicy' in the club." The phrase, "the first time they hear 'Juicy' in the club" has been a touchstone for me ever since, a call for excellence. I expect it to be some amalgam of Scarface, Showgirls (Oh Kim, I love your nails. . .), Poetic Justice, and Choices II. Even the preview gets me palpitating . . .

Folk Art Movement for Post-Christmas

"What's Wrong with Vogue?"—I'll tell you.

This article from today's Times asks that very question, and, as an answer, mentions staleness and dull socials. The author stands up for Anna Wintour (defending her against silly rumors), which I dig, but no solution is offered to right said "wrongness."

I've read Vogue as long as I can remember. Certain issues from the early and mid-nineties are forever fixed in my brain. It is not so interesting as it was then (though back then, in terms of "interest," we also had Liz Tilberis's superior, cerebral Harper's Bazaar), nor am I as receptive to its particular brand of information. But Vogue still has standards and history on its side. It needs no new editor, no massive redesign. It needs a dose of nonreality. Socials are dull. Actresses are not particularly stylish. Stylists are not particularly smart. Disney teen kulture is the cashiest cash cow on the block, its fictional high school students ruling the rugged wasteland. This real horizon is dim and doomy. I say that Vogue ought to circumvent these ugly truths, and be transportative, unreal, other, theatrical, mysterious. Now, more than ever, we need Vogue to project something sublime, to allow us to travel. Maybe they could weave stories, instead of deifying boring demi-celebrities. Maybe they could publish something a bit more inspiring than a long, expensive, constipated advertisement (peppered with good articles). Maybe they could serialize novels and hire more artists and document travels to places other than spas . . . or maybe fashion magazines are dull by nature, a prissy, limited unrevivable medium. 

Love in this Club

The A&P staff rang in 2009 in the correctest way—with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Rosé and a round of harmonic sighing. I have never experienced a New Year's Eve in which revellers expressed such aggression against the passing year, as the countdown started there were cries of "Fuck you, 2008!" Maybe this extreme urgency for change (we also witnessed it leading up to the general election) is healthy and maybe it's not. We chose to remain apathetic, and had a pretty grand time. 

I'm OK. You're OK.

"She is literally the Polaroid of perfection!"—perhaps the deepest, most puzzling lyrical description down our way. 

Up with People

I have a confession. In some "foggy London Towne" of early 2008, I told Pillow that I thought it would be "like really fun" to slip into another Great Depression ( . . . or maybe I said "like really sexy"). Oy. Clearly I was mistaken. Newsflash!—poverty is B-L-E-A-K. And Christmas was especially dismal. I tried to lighten up with posts about fictional consumption, fantastic, impossible gifts. 

In 2009, I'm going to document actual consumption, the spoils of the depressed. 

To begin, I will buy some disposable cameras. I love the exchange implied by the object. I love the objecthood of the camera, of the printed pictures one receives in return for it. Also (and this is really naughty), I kind of want to celebrate disposability just to be contrary, just to remark old-fashioned, piggy, 20th century American sloth and waste.

Oh Formats!

I am not a particular fan of the top-ten list. I watch Letterman for the double-breasted suits and passive aggression. I read Artforum for the ads (or not really at all). I simply ignore the Times's end-of-term lists, because they involve extreme predictability and the possible misuse of the words hipster, fedora, and Downtown (found throughout the fluff of the Papier of Record). All the same—my-oh-my—I feel the need, in the gloaming of '08, to make a list of favorite somethings, if only to remind myself that at least ten good things happened this year.

10. The Snuggie—The blanket with sleeves!TM 

9. Spicy Ripped Beef Soup with Glass Noodles at Kunjip Korean BBQ on 32nd Street. 

8./7.5/7.25. In Film: The Duchess (here, a scene from a ghostly, wonderful Korean bootleg). Amanda Foreman's biography of the Duchess of Devonshire is a favorite, and, before viewing it, I was mighty skeptical of the film adaptation, which stars one tremendously overexposed English Rose. It is, in fact, transportative and utterly feeling. Ms. Knightley's performance is magnificent, and I'm afraid I can't complain about her Chanel campaigns and possible eating disorder any longer (which is cool, because bitching about actresses is so very 2008). Reprise, or, more specifically, the beautiful Scandos of Reprise. And Film Forum's October run of Max Ophul's Lola Montez, the best moving photograph in all of the land and a much needed dose of 1848 cum 1955.

7. The James Brown estate viewing and auction at Christie's.

6. Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love" and Usher's "Love in This Club," two of the best pop singles of the year, one, a pretty ballad with an unexpectedly evocative, difficult chorus, the other, a shallow, smarmy ballad with a sweet, peace and people-loving subtext. 

5. Asa Ames: Occupation Sculpturing, the small, bewitching show of twelve wooden sculptures sat in state in a dimmed, black gallery at The American Folk Art Museum through the summer, a trusty friend that bore much revisiting. 

4. A.M. in New York: Live with Regis and Kelly, The Tyra Banks Show, The View.

3. Ditmas Park

2. Hillary Clinton

1. Barack Obama 

And this didn't even cover it. I could have mentioned The Olympics or The Spitzer Scandale or Memphis Basketball or the Russian and Turkish Baths on E. 10th Street or fresh sage or dried strawberries or Mad Men (good to know).

Come and Get Your Love: Hombres de los 70s

Tanned, chiseled, and a little shaggy—All-American Olympian Bruce Jenner beats Michael "butterface" Phelps any damn day.