Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy...

The Andrews Sisters!

(I'll be listening to this all day to keep the fierce-dark-grey-november-blues at bay.)

Many declensions of luxury

There's that saying about knowing a person by their shoes, which I sincerely hope is not true since my shoes are always in such a state.  But, but, but, I protest, I walk and ride the subway and the bus, and these activities are the enemy of pristine footwear. 
Genereally I wear a pair of shoes until they are not salvageable by even the most skilled of cobblers. Cobblers without a doubt subscribe to the notion that "you can tell a person by their shoes".  This I know by the way they eye me and my raggedy shoes when I take them in for a last-minute emergency rescue.

Anyway, because of the forever shabbiness of my footwear, I have a weird relationship to Candy Pratts Price's Accessories Report each season.

Not even my badge of self-righteous transit-taking pedestrianism can save me from a certain feeling of ... is it desire, is it envy, is it something else?

This looks like the footwear equivalent of Cruella Deville

Candy Pratts Price - Fall 2010 Accessories Report

1stDibs-ing

This orange lamp is like a glass of fresh juice on a Saturday morning.  Antidote for grey days.

Orange Vase Lamp

Giorgio Cavallon Untitled Oil Painting, 1977

Gerd Lang Armchair, Switzerland, 1970s

Paolo Buffa Bar Cabinet, Italy 1940s

Striped Kilim

18th c. Delft Vases

Raffia Scroll Table, USA 1970s

Carlos Falchi Clutch

Onyx Table, Italy 1950s

Susie Cooper Art Deco dishes

Tu t'laisses aller

In one spectacular, breathtaking amalgam of a multitude of glorious things (Aznavour, Godard, Belmondo, Anna Karina, Paris, afternoon apéritifs, the 1960s, jukeboxes, white fur collars, idiosyncratic and adorable Nouvelle Vague filmmaking, the word "bigoudis", Belmondo, Anna Karina, Aznavour...) here is Tu t'laisses aller sung by...drum roll... Charles Aznavour!




From the film Une Femme est Une Femme (1961).

Study

I'm imagining a fine, comfortable New-England study on this dreadful November afternoon. And the sound of gulls.



Delta Overlook by Paul Ferney (LOVE HIS PAINTINGS)

Demijohn table lamp

House Beautiful

Holly Joliffe



Teapot, Etsy

Phillip Jeffries Manila Hemp in Ochre




Hand-Knit Throw, West Elm



 [Correction - It is no longer a "dreadful November afternoon" but an exquisite November evening, crisp and clear, with the sublime scent of burning wood in the air.]

Film Stills I

Barry Lyndon is a masterpiece as far as I'm concerned, the light, the colours, the tone, the pacing....
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
These film stills are wonderfully inspiring, though melancholy.  Are they melancholy only because I know what happens in the film, or are they objectively melancholy and tragic by virtue of something else?

Chanel

Remember this collection?

Karl Lagerfeld has many good points for example: all the white orchids in his Paris apartment, his ponytail, the ability to make old fashion houses very edgy and relevant and ... solvent, thus keeping those precious relics of a more civilized age (I realize this is a debatable point) alive.

Lessons Learned

Thanks to Mock Duck (Mock Duck can you hear me, I love you!)...
Here are "Ten Things I Have Learned" by Milton Glaser.  He's the one who designed the I Love New York Logo and he's a wise, wise man.
Words to live by.

Ten Things I Have Learned
Part of AIGA Talk in London
November 22, 2001

1.YOU CAN ONLY WORK FOR PEOPLE THAT YOU LIKE.This is a curious rule and it took me a long time to learn because in fact at the beginning of my practice I felt the opposite. Professionalism required that you didn’t particularly like the people that you worked for or at least maintained an arms length relationship to them, which meant that I never had lunch with a client or saw them socially. Then some years ago I realised that the opposite was true. I discovered that all the work I had done that was meaningful and significant came out of an affectionate relationship with a client. And I am not talking about professionalism; I am talking about affection. I am talking about a client and you sharing some common ground. That in fact your view of life is someway congruent with the client, otherwise it is a bitter and hopeless struggle.

Click here for the rest.

Autumn nights

Autumn nights are very special, especially at the beginning of Autumn, when the leaves smell divine and the air still has something warm in it.

Now is the beginning of no-longer-Autumn.  It smells like winter... bracing.
So I'm turning on all the lights, every single one, when I'm home.  Burning candles and playing records like Freewheelin' and Blue, feeling somewhere between blue and cozy. 

(Incidentally, Joni Mitchell was the most lovely of all earth-children.)

I believe I see Mama Cass...

Baldovino Barani

Baldovino Barani's uber-pagan portfolio is sort of terrifying to browse through but this guy knows what he's doing.  Amazing.  The third from the top is my favourite.  I would LOVE to see it hung very large in a red-lacquered bar with velvet banquettes...
(click on the photos for larger view)

portfolio