Yassum

Helen Yarmak ermine hooded coat with tail fringe, silk mesh lining.

Teen Sensation

Twilight backlash is such a drag! I spotted these knickers on Jezebel, where they were the featured item in a post about fandom going "too far." How fascist! And when I clicked on the text link "Robert Pattinson panties" (that word makes me boof), I found a whole line of tsk, tsk, tsk blog entries decrying the little garments. But why? As a serious appropriator of images, I am charmed by them, might (if I still wore underwear) consider owning a pair (and this too!--what a trip!). There is a line in the Jezebel post: I'll admit that firstly, it's been a long time since I've been a big "fan" of anyone or anything. Really?! Oh no! She doesn't like anything??? I've had it up to here with the narrowness and humorlessness (or no-humor-but-our-own-ness) of the Brooklyn-based blogosphere.

Twilight is fabulous. The first film (and, I imagine, the soon-to-arrive second) was a style avalanche, a celebration of the extraordinary, near-terrifying lushness of the Pacific Northwest, of small towns, of high school and Lord Byron and glitter and Native peoples and cops and isolation. Oh my goodness. And R. Pattz really is divine. Divine. And people love it. People love him and his girl and the books and the films. And aren't we just sick and tired of mocking the multitudes? A&P is. Lookit:

Carcinogenesis

too easy

White El Dorado

So last night? I had this dream? I took Ghostface Killah as my date to the Academy Awards and he was kissing my neck while I was giving my acceptance speech. And he whispered "I'm going to make love to you tonight, baby" in my ear and I started blushing and stuttering and he yelled out "Staten Island's in the house!" and everybody started cheering. And I was wearing this dress? It was super low-cut in the back and the Wu-Tang logo was in rhinestones across my butt, which was really really big. And my hair was black and in front of my face like Jessica Rabbit's? And suddenly with one dream I set a really high bar for myself. I have to go to the gym. And when I get there I'm going to get my heart rate going with this jam.

Early Photograph for Wednesday

Thebes, Egypt
John Bulkley Greene
salt print
1854

"what's so great about sleeping downtown?"

Woah Fay-shun

The Sunday Times (of London) Style Magazine is tawdry where ours is fussy (either way...fuck 'em). But this sort of drugged, high-class ho in hotel room with chidren's toys concept falls flat everytime, outdoes the typical levels of tawdry and pointless and drivel (even if it so aptly stars Lindz Lohan). A recent Elle shoot of this type just sent me reeeeeeling. I guess Fay-shun can't help but wear its unhealth on its sleeve. But women dressing as girls is just so...defeatist. I want to see more of this. And I'm not entirely joking!

"no lie--i'm higher than i ever been. (born rich born uptown born to win.)"

Birdman. Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. I mean, endless love. And this hook is hotness. But where is the signature bird call???!!!! I want to become a pop star just so I can cut a track with Birdman constructed solely of his bird calls. And is that Drizzy getting dim?

Addendum: I was premature in posting this entry yesterday, having yet to make a close listen. But since last night's commute, "Money to Blow" has been repeat-oned on my iPod and...the hook (chorus?) is clearly supreme, the reason for the track's stupid listenability. But Drake's verse is kind of AWFUL. What's all this talk of roofies?! Roofs? And that "constantly seducing ho's" line is awkward. And oddly, I find it tough to suspend reality with this cat. He says, "I'm on a 24 hour champagne diet." And I get sober. I say no no. I used to be on one of those and it sucks. You get headaches and you blackout and crowds are fine but most one-on-one interactions are total disasters. Generally anti-human, non-life-affirming. And I'm letting it slide because, as stated, I like this part, but that line about money falling on skin...I dig the mention of skin (I'm probably wrong but I think 'touch' is not called upon enough in English-language musics), yet klar-ly he is not talking about hisself--he is throwing money at a woman. The worst. What a punk. And around 8:20 this morning I realized, Birdman (my darling) would not be getting this kind of airplay without this fresh, young thing being attached to the project. And that hurts my feelings.

Best Thing.

WOWOWOWOWOWOW

Love in This Club For the Post-Season (and the late 90's and the Bronx and...always)

(...given that I don't have to hear him talk about Jesus.)

1850

Do review these stills from a tremendously important estate sale held in Memphis over the weekend. It is a treat to glimpse this home, which sits cloaked behind a high fence and a large swathe of property diagonal to our University Club in our Central Gardens, where there is nary a tall building to peep it from. In general though, I find such events to be confusing and tragic. I know a handful of these living descendants, and I understand that their lives have run a separate course--their comforts are not in the old profusions (Lord knows why). People do not live in state anymore, do not want to employ staffs, pay fat tariffs. This (among other things...) is why so many of the fine old American houses have been demolished or turned museum. I can't lay claim to this sort of thing. My ancestors were poor and feckless, but what objects of theirs I do have, I hold fast to. And I imagine, if I possessed in my line a WHOLE house full of things purchased and arranged just so by my people, I would bar it from being disbanded as best I could (I know...money, means, etc.). If I remember correctly (and do correct me), Pillow's family seat was burned down before her mother was born. But if Pillow and Mama Pillow could, I think they would have it still. I'm being unjustly critical (with little grounding in reality, sums and figures). But I know, having grown up in Central Gardens, that properties like these see uncertain and unhappy fates once let loose. If there are potential buyers, they'll surely bristle at the price. It will sit empty for a stretch. It will maybe be bought and sold, bought and sold by those who hardly live in it, certainly not for generation after generation, as before. It lies right on the train track border between ours and a far dodgier section of town. The address is a bit tarnished now, the pocket of land isolating, and in dicey Memphis, worrisome. And so it goes; America is too fast for History.

Whatever happens, the kitchen will be lost. Ooooof.