ballons d'hélium et ombre

this canopy by gustafson porter, from the venice architectural biennial (helium balloons and wispy fabric flapping in the breeze), is the stuff that afternoon dreams are made of. how wildly appropriate for lazy spring days spent shaking grass from your hair.

(see also: apartment therapy.)

un président

now that, my fellow americans, is a president:

(see also: time magazine's photo essays, especially of steven soderbergh's che. i caught this movie during a one-week run at the ziegfeld to qualify for oscar nominations. it has received some premature criticism, based on the assumption that it deifies che guevara. in my humble opinion though, it is a raw, beautifully shot, and fascinating picture of modern revolutions, flaws and all.)

un petit rêve de moi

"sweet dreams 'til sunbeams find you"
... or a rather perfect song for winter

(see also: erin fetherston)

crème

early episodes of the muppet show are chock full of gems like this (especially the musical performances, which featured the likes of rita moreno and debbie harry). and my, how i adore fierce ladies!

quatre yeux

for one reason or another, i find myself lovingly watching heaps of old woody allen movies these days. this may have sparked my newfound pursuit of wildly oversized annie hall glasses.


(see also: lula)

tatouages

i've always secretly wanted an armful of nautical tattoos adorned by sailors en route to the south seas - anchors, mermaids, and scrolls of cryptic phrases. in fact, i once fancied a slight, gentle boy simply because he would roll up the sleeves of his cardigans to reveal tattoos befitting a burly maritime man. i've never found the sense of commitment to accomplish this, so its little surprise that my storybook sensibilities fell for these temporary tattoos by british illustrator julia pott, from her etsy shop.

un film silencieux

i may have gone my whole life without seeing a silent film in its entirety. this morning, with my moma card in hand, i put an end to all that and watched the ethereally gorgeous and perfectly cheeky lady windermere's fan. it was too delicate not to love; as though in a single blink, this celluloid neverland might just vanish. most of all, i liked how some of the movie's conversations went unheard (or in this case, went without intertitles), like bill murray's last whisper in lost in translation.

and my, how i covet all those flapper bands!

une madeleine

(see: tiger lily and tiny teeth)

(the promenade by marc chagall)

today the mail cart delivered flowers, a parcel, and a new book about my favorite artist, marc chagall. i do love a good first page (my favorite is tucked safely away in lady chatterley's lover). a quotation from chagall on this particular first page caught my attention: "every painter is born somewhere. and even though he may respond to the influences of other atmospheres, a certain essence - a certain 'aroma' of his birthplace clings to his work."

i'm certainly not from a land of shtetls, flying lovers, and violin-playing goats. (nevertheless, there were honeysuckle vines and ghost stories; attics and library books; record collections and enchanted, endless summers.) so ever since, i've entertained myself by trying to pick out splashes of my own childhood infatuations.

une métropole

(tote bags from atsuyo et akiko)

(picture by souther salazar)

"chapter one. he was too romantic about manhattan, as he was about everything else ... - no, no, corny, too corny for a man of my taste. can we ... can we try and make it more profound?

chapter one. he adored new york city, although to him it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. how hard it was to exist in a society desensitized by drugs, loud music, television ... - too angry. i don't want to be angry.

chapter one. he was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat. - i love this! - new york was his town, and it always would be ..."

- woody allen, manhattan

un phonographe

(see also: band of outsiders)
suppose someday we all run away to the americas!

une mascarade

perhaps my liking for this digby and iona mustache necklace means that i've finally accepted nature's course for olive girls. more likely though, i'll never tire of playing dress up. (i even keep all of my ripped black tights because they make me feel like a storybook street urchin.)

after all, one can't tell when they'll want to travel incognito. with this, forged documents in the name of phileas fogg, and a dubious cockney accent, the possibilities for mustachioed mischief are endless.

l'ennui rêveur

dreamy ennui, first as illustrated by julie morstad:




then by andre fromont:

and finally, ladies and gentlemen, the lusciously unkempt louis garrel - (please see: love songs) - in the new hedi slimane diary:

brood on, playa.

les .. goosebumps

don't you just love a good power ballad?

photographies des femmes préoccupées

schemes and daydreams by aya takano:






(she's a part of kaikai kiki, a warhol factory for the new day and age)

un itinéraire illustré

at the moment, there are two langouring trips that i hope to make during my life. i would love to spend bleak winter months cozied up on the trans-siberian railway with turkish pastries, black tea, intrigue, and romantic, panoramic views of mongolia. then, someday, i want to spend the summer months bicycling about in the brilliant scandanavian sunlight.

regading the latter:

(see also: gloria aniela)

une petite vanité

lately, i'm enamored with lizzie fortunato, a lovely, handcrafted accessories line, conceived by two sisters in their college dorm rooms. imagine forays into your grandmother's attic as a child, or the little mermaid's treasure trove of dinglehoppers, plus gadgets and gizmos a-plenty. their jewels and flapper bands are made with honest-to-goodness treasures, like century-old poker chips from south america, african glass beads, clock faces, antique chains, and pirate coins gently worn away by the sea. but they had me at flapper bands.

un film

next week, the movie adaptation of my favorite book, brideshead revisited, will be released! i suspect that this story and i were meant to be. earlier this year, i re-read it and a peculiar thing happened. the first half of the book is called "et in arcadia ego". the morning that i opened that book for the second time , my boss at 20th century fox oddly, impulsively had me research that phrase for no apparent reason. it refers to being in arcadia, a carefree eden. then, just as i stepped outside that very morning, a bus drove by, advertising an art exhibit at the met, called "visions of arcadia". i have yet to get to the bottom of things, but am always pleased when such small and senseless mysteries unravel.

i'm excited for this movie mostly for sebastian flyte, probably my favorite book character. there he is above, stuffed bear in hand. what can i say? i've always had a weakness for dandies (it never works out in my favor) and have a habit of becoming hopelessly infatuated with idiosyncrasies. i love him for snubbing the oppressively stuffy insitutions around him, very simply with his romantic whims; for being so charmingly cheeky; for carrying a teddy bear named aloysius; and even for being impertinently, obnoxiously tragic.

most of the book deals with the intensely close friendship between sebastian and one charles ryder. people have always speculated whether there were amorous undertones. interestingly enough then, in this version, sebastian will openly be gay for the first time and flirts with some romantic feelings for charles. whether this is for better or worse, i'm really intrigued to see the outcome.

7 petits joies et infatuations

here are just a handful of little treasures that i've loved this year:

the folksy, jazz and country-inspired rock of she & him is essentially the soundtrack to lounging lazily on a blanket in your yard, smelling vaguely of sunscreen with red-chipped nail polish on your fingers and a portable 8-track player by your side.

i fell in love with the paris movie theatre in new york during my first visit to see paris je t'aime sometime last year. it plays only one movie at a time (usually for a matter of weeks or months) and empties out into a beautiful part of a city. button your coat as you leave, shuffle past the plaza, and suddenly, you're in the midst of central park. anyhow, i saw perhaps my favorite movie that i've seen this year there, les chansons d'amour (love songs). a review of it noted that you didn't just like the director's films, you developed weird little crushes on them. it was certainly the case. beautiful stories, songs, and yup, lead actor, louis garrel (*swoon*).

every other review i read compared it to a new wave musical from the sixties, called les parapluies de cherbourg (the umbrellas of cherbourg), which i rented immediately. whereas love songs was dark and lovely, umbrellas painted exactly the sort of romantic, candy-colored dream state that i tend to pursue. genveive, the main character, works in a tiny, cotton candy pink umbrella shop, so whenever i've worked in my pint-sized pink shop on rainy days, i've smiled goofily to myself, as though it were my own inside joke.

a picture's worth a thousand words: the concert by marc chagall

i've always loved a good magazine and my new favorite is a british fashion magazine called lula . unlike some stiff and terribly unoriginal magazines, it's wonderfully dreamy, for the sorts of nice girls who spent their early teenaged years taking pictures of their feet.

recently, i've been infatuated with a rock band from california, princeton. sixties-inspired rock sounds from california and britian have always made me love music so.

nostalgia: my dear friend, susie took this picture of a wonderland of a bookshop that we lived just across from, in virginia. it's underground and filled with every manner of mermaid possible, as well as an amazing array of old and rare books. this image reminds me of just how enchanted our home is: cobblestoned streets, haunted places, bicycles, sunken gardens, terraces, constellations, beautiful seasons.

dog-eared paperbacks

“in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass brands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; london; this moment of june.”

- virginia woolf