“angry sex with my running partner in a café restroom.”

“Hey Persephone, how can I find the holy grail?”  

both queries which led to this very blog you are reading now.

What people surf for in search of transcendance as we enter 2012 is not much changed, in 10 years, in 1000 years, since the Greek myths began or the dawn of “Time.” Like grafitti on the wall of an ancient city, human desires don’t change, we just transform everything in the wake of relentlessy pursuing them. Birth. Sex. Death. Repeat. or End?

With our wide-awake awareness of our botanical ball now teetering on the edge of unwinding, from tsunamis to 99 problems and 99 percent occupying the streets, each of our decisions can feel like feather surfing tidal waves.  2012 is year of the water dragon in Chinese astrology, fire-breathing energy into Everything, so we can either be consumed by the flames/water or Renew, kid. If we have to tighten Hermes belts, use cute-sloganed totes to lug our organic foods, consider our carbon footprint and Seven Generations in every action, that’s a tall order for the humans …unless,of course, we make it hot and sexy. (music! up!)

More fun+less mess is called for “The End of Time.”

For those on the 2012 Train to Nowhere Apocolypse, Chief Seattle said, “There is no death, only a change of worlds.” So, lighten up, let’s enjoy it by renaming it:

“Our Energy/Sex Crisis.”

Forty years after the famous crying Indian in the 1970′s commercial watching the polluting of America, most of our culture still teeters on our teenage mentality. We act like “Most Famous 2011 Teen” Rebecca Black, reluctantly fake-shrugging, mugging for the cameras, “OK, Mom,” having at the clean-up of our room only because we realize the equation impacts our Friday night joy rides with the gang. Nature’s publicity campaign, positioning “green” as new eco-luxury, bohemian chic and eco-techno, might have adjusted things a tad, but to really surf this change of worlds, let’s call it what it is, Our Energy/Sex Crisis. This way the drama and passion-driven can argue with their running partners and quest holy grail-like about Eco-Crisis+Predicaments from an Energetic/Sexual Urgency Scale and maybe Balance this Ball. Oui?  Time, Birth, Sex, Desires and Death. C’mon, even Einstein said “It’s All Energy.” Think of it “All” as Desirable as Sex. Before we kill All and ourselves, for godsakes.

Alejandro Chaskielberg, Winner Sony World Photography Award 2011

For clues, predictions to energy/sex infuse the world’s predicaments, we spin the Time-machine in a mash-up including Native American quotes, to street art and re-visiting the top stories in an unearthed copy of one of my favorite Berkeley neo-hippie culture mags, cyberpunk bible, Grandmother to Wired mag, Mondo 2000, circa 1990′s. The Time-Machine also stopped at two icons of timeless, energetic/sexy, poetic dragon-energy people, to serve as hosts for our foray, pop-culture’s famed “wild childs,” Bridget Bardot and Jimi Hendrix. Bridget was chosen for her beachy, rebel reclusive wildness,

and Jimi for his trans-gender, other-worldy music and his prophetic “castles made of sand slips into the sea, eventually” themed connection to this post.

How we might sexily, mightily and handily turn our little sandy spaceship towards more fun, less mess energy/sex, for the dawn of a new day, 2012, we look at some of Life’s precious basics and how the new consciousness might actually be the new energy/sexy:

art, gender, cars, transport, clothing, caves, food, nature, animals, body and music.

All New Energy/Sexy. All New, All the Time. Enter here.

my path to the beach during a recent trip to Miami Beach, where the genesis of this post began…

“A very great vision is needed and the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky.”    Crazy Horse

(My Pre-Beach Dream/Vision: Even before I put a footprint upon my path to the beach I dreampt of it leading to an exact replica of Jessica Lichtenstein’s recent piece at Gallery Nine5, where happy groups played among Dr. Seuss-like pools and slides of pleasure.  So come, dig a little place in the sand, welcome the waves, play in some pools and get some sexy-eco-techno love.)

NEW ART ENERGY/SEX

Follow That Artist! In ye cave times, artists were the harbingers or shamans amped up on hallicinagens charting the path for providers to find food or at the highest, cave dwellers appealing to the heavens to find inner peace. Today art is made by similar open, altruistic and passionate people which then is snatched up by smart and savvy investors and developers as investments worth as gold. It makes for one sexy scene. In Miami Beach’s Art Basel art fair this month to plant the seeds for a 2012 urban intervention, we play prophesy muse with some art trends as harbingers that might change the world:

We Get More Crafty, Knitta Please! A bike tour through the Wynwood art area (a mini Portland, btw) knitted together the trend of yarn bombing, appearing everywhere these days, even Gap commercials. Our favorite collective by one of the originators, Magda Sayeg, is named “Knitta Please,” embodying the warm and trendy “We Are The World” Grandma Earth blanket and cozy urge of this trend. Expect Macrame at the lowest and knitted community at the height.

We Scale+Transcend Culture!  Peter Sarkisian‘s video piece crawling on a dictionary at Bernice Steinbaum gallery at once brings the playful body-oriented touch and feel of books and bodies with doodling, a kind of drooling desire and love my cold computer and I never share. Could a play on scale like this help the Earth? What if we re-defined ourselves as Baby Mamas and Baby Daddies to the Earth?

We Occupy Appropriation! A phone interview with Books IIII Bishof, curator of Primary Flight, primarily responsible for the advent of Miami Beach’s Wynwood becoming an internationally recognized home to the world’s finest graffiti art, was a manifesto on Questing. Books sees the timeless equation of art moving life forward through first the common man’s predicaments and resulting art which then becomes an obsessive quest for the upper class who pay for the missing street-level passion and drama in their lives of comfort. No money, but love, equals Make Art. No love, but money, equals Buy Art. With more experiential, audience-inclusive and performance oriented art, we see a harbinger of shared experience that is less something to appropriate, but more classless rituals which emphasize commonality, and dare we envision occupied territory like “tribal” and “ritual”and “sexy”?

We Contain History, Heraldry and Irony! The mascot of Art Basel’s birthplace, Basel, Switzerland, is the ancient beast, the basilisk, from the Greek meaning “little king,” a mythical winged snake/dragon. As Basel is the birthplace of important global markets in art and Time, aka the watch and jewelry industry, not to mention Swiss bank accounts, the city is a good indicator of the state of wealth in the world and how appropriate, like a lair, it is watched over by a dragon. Thanks 1% for hailing the transformative and creative powers of the dragon, the little king of paganism, wild child of Nature! (insert gratuitous, regal-costumed Hendrix image here!)

Given the preponderance of bling and courtly graphics over the past 5 years in art and consumer goods, I especially loved these holy, funny grails I saw at Art Basel, from Galerie VIVID, Studio Job and the famous Belgian hand-blown crystal-makers, Val Saint Lambert…in service to the Realm. Tell the google “holy grail” searcher, I may have found his vessel.

Two other Art Basel turn-ons mixing Mastery and Mass appeal while extolling the bio-geometric, included Moss‘s Morphing Fruit Platters 1D Series 300, a collaboration with Dr. Haresh Lalvani, architect, sculptor, inventor, morphologist and Professor of Architecture at Pratt Institute. The Doctor fed computationals to produce endless generations of laser cut steel disc fruit platters, each unique like snowflakes you can purchase. Something mass-sexy and fractal-feely there.

Alvaro Montagna

Tag! We’re it! We Embody Nature! And above, commissioned by Sushi Samba’s owner, Shimon Bokovza, for his venture, Grafitti Gone Global, Marc Forne‘s community-created, walk-in cozy coral keeps getting bigger each time a new version is built. For more on this and adventures at Art Basel see the article I wrote for Metropolis magazine’s POV on art and community, a growing trend with millions of prophetic permutations from coral-like cathedral building, art spawned by participants and other such populist interactive energy/sex and equation changes.

GENDER ENERGY/SEX

We Gender Bend! Pretty in Perennials, yes? Many men are. Gender transcendance pollenated everywhere this year, from Chaz Bono, legalized same-sex marriages and 3rd world abominations.

The antique issue of Mondo 2000 featured Kate Bornstein, aka the Gender Outlaw, whose definition of a 3rd gender is beyond social construct and definition and now, circa 2011, she helps teens combat bullying. I like the transition. Along with other needlessly dueling dualities, Bullying and Emotional Blackmail are absolutely two overfed, beastial, vestigial gender organs we need to lose as a species. For 2012, I predict more melting of such.

The more both macho and wimmen-folk cultures soften and toughen in balance (aka without fear) the excitement of contrast, free expression and non-repression will prevail, everywhere. Genders may like each other more. We have to have faith in this boys and girls. If 6 was 9, said Jimi.

Alvaro Montagna

CAR ENERGY SEX

We Re-invent the Wheel. Cars r us. I grew up in suburbia and my father was a car salesman, I placed him here, so he could be happy to be this close to Bridget. At the Art Basel launch of BMW’s sexy new i8 and i3, we saw that even luxury car makers are realizing the desire for energy efficiencies. Real change will mean giving up the fossilized fuel and fracked gas ghosts and playing more in the billion watt bulb of the original Wheel, the sun. Whisper until it is a scream…Solar Power.

The Sun rules as its design is the function, the purpose and packaging is the material object itself. In a nature-design perfection, all things should be valued for what they don’t utilize energy and materials wise and then what they give back. Like science meeting religion we’ll expect our goods and services to satisfy on multiple levels to prove their efficiency. This could be fun as a value system. Imagine the clapper, which grows food like a chia pet which doubles as a popeil knife.

Now our cycle of action is activities which leave re-generating stains upon imaginary, imperious sleek countertops to be wiped away with more paper, more refuse. Infinity-energy thinking can orient to spiraling DNA, bike wheels, eyeglasses or the crossing point of our 3rd eye, dissolving duality of all things for a greater vision and yes, maybe even a more “sexy” experience.

Horse-power and Sun-power gives new meaning to the Convertible, already a sexy idea.

The convertible parking lot reclamation icon, 1111 Lincoln Road, by architects Herzog & de Meuron in Miami, was a spot-on venue for BMW’s launch, sponsored by Dwell Media. Car indeed seemed all sexy but the unsexy question in the room was where the electricity comes from and that answer is still…oil. That heartburning image of the gulf burning while the sun shone overhead, giving out tons of energy is an emblematic cosmic joke. Five-hundred trees donated to the city in exchange for the event by architect and one of the presenters at the event, Chad Oppenheim, is the right thinking. Step by step. Breathing is an energetic exchange.

TRANSPORT ENERGY/SEX

Bike Likes. I like bikes. I love bikes. I love the freedom, free exercise, low-cost and zero polluting. I happily joined the locals loving the liberation via Miami’s Decobike, a pioneering urban rental/share program from tons of steel, high gas prices and parking nightmares.  Although more bike lanes are still a gentrifying proposition, given Miami’s condo-car-centric culture, in the meantime, exfoliation by hedges, oldster diving right or left and potential collisions with parking meters are the lesser price to pay. Bridget certainly knew how to work a bike, see above.

BTW, several BMW positives are their support of arts, such as the above, Peter Jansen’s movement explorations and their partnership with Guggenheim Foundation for the Lab, conversations in 9 cities in 6 years.

CLOTHING ENERGY/SEX

The Fibers of Alchemy. Popping out of the BMW party we ran into our friend, architect Rene Gonzalez, designer of the Alchemist shop, which artfully showed only two stories in the whole store, Rick Owens and a Native American influence story highlighted by a teepee with video inside by Chrome Hearts. Reviewer, Candy Pratts Price on Vogue.com did not blink at $5000. moccasins to pad about the teepee, although I did. Why for half that price I could purchase the Rick Owens jacket I LOVE (in 3 colors too.) Not to mention it could perhaps feed a village for a few months. Doing the math and contemplating a luxury purchase is not sexy, but the real cost to the environment of our clothing is staggering.Transparency will thankfully increasingly help transcend the inequalities of clothing production, with stories such as the recently revealed real secrets behind Victoria Secret’s organic bras and panties, sourced from African child labor.

Legendary fashion pioneer heros and heroines, rose and fell this year, from the falling Gaultier’s insulting racial gaffe to the highest high of Alexander McQueen’s triumphant exhibit to Martin Margiela‘s house history in his Miami shop during Art Basel MB. Less visible is Queen Vivienne Westwood’s Ethical Fashion Programme, helping women in Kenya. Yes, it’s sloganed bags, but of the best kind. And I guess if you can’t be the rainbow like Jimi, you can tote it.

Spirits rose end of year with one of the Earth’s most forward clothing Master, Jochen Zeitz, CEO Sport and Lifestyle Group, CSO of PPR and Chairman of the Board of PUMA, with his speech on sustainability for the Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. His talk is a kind of milestone on “the economic invisibility of nature” and how the value of the planet’s natural resources, ecosystems and biodiversity can be fully and consistently considered in economic, accounting and decision-making systems.

CAVE ENERGY/SEX

Energy Efficient Edifaces. My 1994 issue of Mondo 2000 featured evolutionary architect, Eugene Tsui’s in-depth study of living organisms and natural processes, not just building inspired by forms. For instance, how can termites build towers 20 feet high, in climatic temperature swings of 40 to 120 degrees while maintaining a consistant interior temperature of 2 degrees?  With dirt? And some of them date back 4000 years?

The architecture world thankfully leads the world with LEEDS certifications, a wish for the coming years is that food, clothing and health industries endeavor to the same. Although I am told most people do sex with their eyes closed, one can imagine that copulating eyes-wide open in a hive-like room only increases the buzz of birds and bees.

“No machine can compare with the ability of the human hand and 10,000 computers will never comprehend the design intelligence of a single blade of grass.”

Eugene Tsui

Keichi Ohta, Mondo 2000 cover

FOOD NATURE ENERGY/SEX
Flower Food. Back in 2001, the same year I moved back to NYC from country living, solar house and organic farming, the book, Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan, archangel of new frontiers where “nature and culture interact,” came out. Beyond loving him for thinking sexy like plants and insects, I also love what he said about Jonny Appleseed, our mythical fertilizing folk hero, who promoted wild, un-grafted apples, aka hard cider apples. “Really, what Johnny Appleseed was doing and the reason he was welcome in every cabin in Ohio and Indiana was he was bringing the gift of alcohol to the frontier. He was our American Dionysus.” Oh yes, agriculture can be damn sexy. Of course when that same alchohol was used to tempt Indians away from their land and life, well, that is another story indeed.

Slower Food. Ten years ago, it took a forward thinking Japanese film crew to introduce me to Slow Food, exhibiting at the Natural Expo in LA, our client at the forefront of natural food and lifestyles. Fast forward to Miami 2011 and slow food translates to two days online to locate a non-Whole Foods nearby supermarket in Miami Beach’s northern parts. The dismal 3rd world bodega offerings reminded me of Michael Pollan’s letter to Whole Food on local produce.

Back in NYC, one tasty example of innovative Slower Food, my friend, Quinn Fitzgerald’s Feast Upon, takes the hunting and gathering time element out by selecting the best chefs and best local ingredients delivered to your home so you can cook, invite guests and thus create community. Now just in Brooklyn, a good idea fast coming to a city near you.

No Mo GMO’er Foods. The adjustment to organics is still debated, ongoing. And, then, like natural gas fracking, GMO (genetically-modified organisims) via Monsanto’s push to re-invent the wheel, keeps getting approvals, Obama, he of the organic garden on White House lawn, actually signed several just this week. Click here on Food Democracy Now to stop its presence on your plate. For me in 2012, a resolution to begin an indoor organic herb garden begins here.

ANIMAL ENERGY/SEX

“If you talk to the animals they will talk with you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them you will not know them and what you do not know, you will fear. What one fears, one destroys.”   Chief Dan George

I gave my beauty and my youth to men. I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals.
Bridget Bardot

Kids, Gurus and Animals say the Darnest things, yet let’s be real, they are often the Smartest things. This year, Miru Kim‘s 104 nude hours with two pigs saved from the slaughterhouse in a gallery was a primal hit at Art Basel. Our host, Bridget has been an animal rights activist for years.

Cloned animal farms are shutting down because less than 10 percent of animals survive and it remains a non-cost efficient, fruitless exercise. Outcry against this abuse, the past 5 years of street art, nightclubbers and fashion mags morphing animal horns, masks and sheer empathy shows encouraging direction and I personally love talking to the animals. It’s true they make us more human, can you imagine when we as a species can go back to really communing with them?

HEALTH ENERGY/SEX

Orlan

Modified bods. “Upon suffering beyond suffering: the Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world. A world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations. A world longing for light again. I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the sacred Tree of Life and the whole earth will become one circle again. In that day, there will be those among the Lakota who will carry kowledge and understanding of untiy among all living things and the young ones will come to those of my people and ask for this wisdom. I salute the light within your eyes where the whole Universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am at that place within me, we shall be one.”  Crazy Horse

Artist Orlan‘s surgery art on her body was featured in Mondo 2000 reminding us of this year’s shocking news of botched body morphing experiments and deaths at surgery “parties.” Coupled with a recent Wired magazine article on Trials and Errors: Why Science is Failing Us on failing pharmeceuticals, perhaps the world might finally be getting a clue.

A little intuition and simple natural solutions exist without diving into the medicine cabinet.  I believe we have to know how to intuitively heal ourselves while we heal our host planet. A recent cold and flu was healed in 3 days on a “me-scription” of chicken soup, garlic, seaweed, yoga, meditation, sunshine and sleep and it was a reminder of the power we are only guessing at now, that our ancestors knew well. Is this the loop that will create the “end of Time?” I think so.

MUSIC ENERGY/SEX

Phonetically Un-modified Musicians. Late one night a friend popped out 7 discs of Burt Sugarman’s Midnight Special and the lithe, positively groovin’ rock n roll and soul legends from the 1970′s made you hunger for un-lip-synced, super-fit, un-carbo-GMO bodies and innocent crooning. Even long-haired rockers looked kinda cute. Hot Chocolate’s lead singer was so pop-perfect and the colors of the stage had me groupie-taking cell pics of the telly and yearning for more live music and less props.

Perhaps the love child heir of Bridget (hair) and Jimi (air), Amy Winehouse joined Jimi in the 27 club this year along with legend, Phoebe Snow, leaving lady voices of Adele, Annie Clark, Lady Gaga and (we spotted her early-on) Florence Welch to carry the torch. And yes, Beyonce even made our list, given her swing to Mama-hood and Boho, Bardot-hood. Welcome to Bohemia, deary-one.

Yukimi Nagano is another Fem-Love of mine, she gets the “Neo-Bridget Award.” A little Morcheeba, a little Chaka Khan, Erykah Badu, I am loving the new album from Little Dragon, Ritual Union, with more songs on top of the song I already consider my theme song, Constant Surprises:

As for the menfolk and bands, this year we honored the passing of Heavy D, Nick Ashford and heavy, Gil Scott Heron, while we loved TV on the Radio, Shawn Lee’s Ping Pong Orchestra, Bon Iver (we called them early on too) and traveling troupadour Gary Clark Jr. He gets the crown of Nu-Reverb, the “Neo-Jimi Award,” making live guitar blues sound like it might the first time ever breathed, ever invented. And the voice…the voice.

My all-time favorite music these days? Nature sounds on radio. crickets. bubbling brooks. birds. frogs. angels.

Angel come down from heaven yesterday
she stayed with me just long enough
for afternoon tea
and she told me a story yesterday
about the love between the moon and the deep blue sea
and when it was time for her to go
she spread her wings her wings high over me
and she said i shall return tomorrow

and i said fly on my sweet angel
fly on through the skies
fly on me sweet angel
tomorrow i will feel you by my side

and sure enough
this morning comes to me
with silver wings silhouetted
against the glow of the child sunrise
and as the blue birds and the sparrows envy me
she says i love you little boy
today you shall fly
she kissed me once
and the feeling so good
she made me cry
and now we can fly together

i said fly on my sweet angel
fly on through the skies
fly on my sweet angel
together we shall always be light

W A V E   ON.

happy new year friends.

LOVE, Jade    

Sound created the Universe, stars and lovers. hello I see, smell, taste you too.

East Coast USA: we are in black earth month here. It’s getting cold and we find ourselves seeking warmth, shelter, comfort in the familiar and also the transcendant. The mechanics of our thoughts, running around accomplishing things on our hamster wheels crave a dive into Sensuality and Creativity. I declare a Synesthesia Stew of the Seven Senses as the ticket out of disconnect and cold of Life’s Assembly Line. A dissolve and immersion into the sensory delights that exist as secret doorways in any moment can be symphonic and fulfilling like Olde Tyme Religion! (or at least a moment of feeling like an Art-Star, whatever that personally means for YOU.)

Astrologically, aka in the logic of the stars, for November we were in Scorpio moon related to secrets, extremism, the mysteries of birth and death.  Now, with all those areas balanced and in check, we move into a moon ruled by archer Sagitarius moon, more free to indulge our curiosity about Life’s Secrets through a love of travel, knowledge with a fresh philosophy based on more than our intellect alone, learning to trust our instincts and seven senses. More fun, in other words.

Everyday in NYC offers this in abundance, here a sniff through my month in some of my favorite private clubs, rooftops, homes and photography galleries in search of The Best NYC Secrets To Unlock The Senses. Like the Tao, at every moment there are 10,000 things to choose to focus on, here are a few in this month’s issue, to get you started. First a dive into Star-stuff, the fountain of Sense and Creativity.

Simen Johan’s “Until the Kingdom Comes”

“The Earth on which we stand is made almost entirely of material created inside a star. Now we have a direct measurement of how supernovae enrich space with the elements that condense into the dust that is needed for stars, planets and life.”

Margaret Meixner of the Space Telescope Science Institute

Simen Johan

We are star stuff harvesting star light.

Carl Sagan

Scientists, Artists and US Weekly agree, stars are creation machines. The beginning, it is said was a word. I declare a less pedantic, authoritative hypothesis, maybe it was more like a song or a scent that served as Ye Gods’ Little Factory Whistle. Living always in our logical minds or mindless emotion, situating consciousness in the body and its senses is a great healer and comforter. Turning on music regulates heartbeat, lighting a scented candle is aromatherapy and all can be an instant elemental correction as our energy syncs up with the purity. We have the capacity to expand further into a transference and mash-up of the senses so we see music, feel color or taste touch to experience the creativity of Synesthasia, a wider spectrum of “Feel” inspiring artists throughout time with boundary-less borders of sensing.

here, to get your synapses firing, a clip of humans proclaiming monkeys and other animalia don’t dream, courtesy a bizarre, little radio snippet I see future DJ’s to sampling to great effect.

(ignore the bizarre Krishna art here, it’s an odd Oz behind the curtain for this clip, click Play, I promise its worth it!)

“Synesthetes often report that they were unaware their experiences were unusual until they realized other people did not have them, while others report feeling as if they had been keeping a secret their entire lives, as has been documented in interviews with synesthetes on how they discovered synesthesia in their childhood.”

Wikipedia

“She has that displacement of the senses which others take drugs to find. So she is like a lover of rock who sees vibrations when he hears sounds.”

Norman Mailer, “Marilyn: A Biography”

Sing the rapturous Love-Song unto me!

Burn to me perfumes!

Wear to me Jewels! Drink to me, for I love you!

I love you!

I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunrise;

I am the Naked Brilliance

of the voluptuous night-sky.

attributed to Nuit, an Egyptian sky goddess

Come! Now we dive into the secret drawer of our senses, the secret spots in NYC and what lies undies!

1st sense: secret sounds. Sing the rapturous Love-Song unto me!

Tarek Atoui is a snake-charmer crasher with the turntables, his arms flailing about like a mad scientist, hands in heavy rotation, maybe not even touching the turntables as much as luring the sound out of them.

Then as a drummer and someone seemingly playing a plunger got on stage I swear I saw a butterfly in the dark studio. Ligeti worked a percussion instrument like a library of animal noises. Harp, drums and sax electrofied into silence with the waves of conversation voices in the crowd. Suddenly…

…the famous refrain “Jack declared house” voice music sample blared into airplanes as Raz Mesinai DJ took over the turntables for a solid set. Some wine and Tarek tearing up, I tweet: “These musicians are attacking their instruments I have never seen. Tearing up, crying myself.”

Sitting (by chance?) next to Performa founder, Rosalee Goldberg and Lee Hirsch, director of the hailed movie, The Bully Project, capped the evening. Another thankfully typical, lyrical secret life-expanding NYC evening.

image of Rosalee Goldberg and Tarek Atoui from Billy Farrell

2nd sense: seeing light: secrets of the universe expanding.

Given that personal experiences of recent discoveries of that which transcends even Einstein theories may be a little hard to pin down, namely “sub-atomic particles aka nuetrinos, faster than the speed of light, which shape-shift from one of three varieties of the particle which can “tranverse planets and walls of lead like light through a window” …an easier way is ducking in and out of NYC’s Chelsea galleries. Full of secret spaces that open up vastness, sinus’s and creativity, my shape-shifting, odd face-making friend (Vanity Fair Italia photographer, Orlando Salmeri) and I tested the theory of trancendance through an art jaunt on a recent Saturday. Here with Richard Serra’s “walls of lead” installation in the Gagosian gallery.

vision. seeing big secret things on the big screen.

“Letters From The Big Man“ released on 11.11.11 in New York and nothing like a Big Secret Star to open up the senses. From a small indie film to be one of 100′s in a Time Square theatre, NY filmgoing is instant star-struckness.

For another sneak peek at being Brave in The Big Wild, see Disney’s “Brave” movie coming up in 2012, a romp through the Wilds O’ Scotland. More about this to come as we work on ILS:Scotland 2012, a BIG runway show at The Hammerstein Ballroom in March 2012, curated by some BIG names in fashion such as ……(secret), the creator of New York….Week…and … the founder of…Art…and….plus top designers such as…. There ye go laddie and lasses, that’s it for now, hold your horses, much more to come on this secret event unfolding.

Speaking of other secrets of NY, this month I discovered Brooks Brothers. I know, a classic NY tradition for basics and stalwart sartorials, but have you seen some of their designer collections such as Black Fleece from Thom Brown? I love it.

Not to mention a secret collection of yum Scottish-made luxury accessories, Fraser Balgowan, soon to be launching in the States, with leather and fabrics culled from one privately owned acreage of wild land, owned by the lovely Fiona and her husband, including free-range red deer. Now that is Touching Earth Sensuality!

…and yes, this shy laddie serving drinks at the Brooks Brothers party was wearing a kilt along with his cute pinchable face, Highballs in the Highlands, indeed!

3rd sense: feeling, touch, empathy. Wear to me Jewels!

Bejeweling is India’s grace upon the world and its colors often float majestically through NY. “India Song” from photographer Karen Knorr at Danziger Gallery, on until December 23, 2011, is a private jewel box to silent inner realms and the elegant mystical presence of an animal in a human space. Did the animal dream of this placement or did the human…one has to ask.

Hanut Singh is a secret. A Master Jeweler with a Pedigree. (his GrandPappy was the “late and great Maharaj Kunar Karamjit Singh of Kapurthala”) Gems like Alba Clemente, Cindy Sherman, Rachel Roy, Wendi Murdoch, Rasa Music’s Donna d’Cruz, Penelope Cruz and the Olsen twins crew all have Hanut’s number on the mobile.

I was honored to privately view the jewels on Hanut’s latest visit to New York and the organic power of the gems and settings made me repeatedly gasp. Really. More on Hanut for sure!

4th sense: scents erase time. Burn to me perfumes!

For secret perfumes of the best indie perfumers simmering up cauldrons of resins, fruit and flower elixirs and gummy woods…read last month’s post.  My nasal fibers and brain synapses are still reeling from that stopping to smell the roses.

5th sense: space. privee trysting addresses in which to expand.

#241

I was invited for an evening at Norwood Club, sitting like a Grande Dame of Secrecy, unobtrusive on 14th Street while inside its four floors, an opera, harpist Phamie Gow and 10,000 other secret happenings were unfolding. We got a little tour with Alan Linn, the passionate owner whose taste in art and atmosphere is well worth the price of admission. A surprise evening in NY can be quiet and melodious in a candle lit plush living room with about 30 people grooving to harp music.

#21

Hustling down a cold street lit with soft golden doors, (which accounts for the blurry photog) I spotted Hotel Griffou. Have not yet been, but intrigued. ”The restaurant gets its name from the 1870′s boarding house located in the same building and originally presided over by Madame Marie Griffou, a big-hearted French woman with a soft spot for creative types.”

#518, #9

Hotel Americano. For a birds-eye view of Chelsea, go up the back staircases of any hotel and head up to the roof. In summer, a roof bar is a cacophony of phonies posturing, in winter, rooftop bars are serene, windswept perches at the level of hawks, seagulls and helicopters. Recently we scurried up to the roof and saw two hawks, the masses tredding the highline and some cool pics.

Not quite as high up (2000) as Edward Burtynsky’s stunning “Dryland Farming” photographs at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery.

5th sense: tasting. Drink to me, for I love you! I love you!

New York’s culinary pleasures are endless and the secret is they don’t have to always cost a bundle. Two of my latest favorites, from our client, celebrity chef Nisa Lee’s Jade Cocktail, (that and other cocktail recipes here) to my latest obsession, dried seaweed in olive oil packs at C-Town for $1.79.

6th sense: otherworldly vision: visit with the up-all-night “freaks” of nyc. I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunrise;                     

Good to touch base with the cafe ladies then and now. What creeps around NY at night is transcendant and usually transexual. Teacher of Diane Arbus, Lisette Model‘s images from the 30′s to 50′s, seen recently at Bruce Silverstein Gallery, resonate as much as Gilles Larrian‘s “Idols” at Steven Kasher Gallery.

And if you can’t stay up that late, just make a cool magazine.Part of Performa 11, Daido Moriyama presented a serenity of process, within the old time magazine making world, inviting people to construct their own at Aperture Foundation. I love his nighttime, elusive and secrets of NY images.

More magazine worship news this month includes that of style.com going print this month and my own personal visit to the shrine of V, the world’s biggest magazine. It was an afternoon, an off-day in the Mercer Street headquarters where the ISSUE was just lounging like a leopard or a Big Temple Buddha in the home offices, strangely quiet, while a sultry male model sat waiting for a call-in, the receptionist slinked through as did editors and photographers. (Another of my NYC secret spots is the largest Buddha in NY sitting in a temple at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. Oh! and yes, while you are there, my new fave vegan resto, Buddha Bodai. I know, there I go mixing up the senses again!))

Becoming larger than life is Rashaad Newsome, his work has evolved to Mastership. One of my favorites was the emanating, morphing Bling Video at Marlborough Gallery for his “Herald” exhibit,which included a Performa 11 performance (with the official heraldic write-up by my pal, curator Amani Olu.)

7th sense secret: Giving,touching. I am the Naked Brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky.

Beyond the Gaga, the Gala hype and the Gallery bling, one eternal secret of NY is that everyone is very giving. A mature New Yorker’s evening out is less likely new beats and breakdancing as it is private and public soirees dedicated to raising funds for worthy causes. Why not plan a trip to NYC around attending a fund-raising event for a good cause? Stars, Feel-goods and a Sensory shelf life beyond 5 minutes. This month, three beautiful charities dedicated to kids and creativity have crossed my path. I declare that giving is the Seventh Sense.

Pencils of Promise ”builds schools in the developing world and trains socially conscious young leaders to take action at home and abroad.” With catering by our client, Nisa Lee, Justin Bieber star-studded the Pencils of Promise 2011 charity gala this month.

A precious, smart friend Janine Francolini began Flawless Foundation, after struggling with her special needs son and the limiting and dangerous options and services available to him. “There are over 12 million children with behavioral challenges in this country  and 1 in 5 children will have a psychiatric diagnosis by the age of 18.” The good news is that with diet, yoga, nature and new sharing-based and respectful behavior techniques (which we all can learn from) major healing is happening as a result of this tiny dynamo known as Janine.

A leader with Flawless Foundation’s Pioneer gardens project reports that “a class of 8 – 11 year old boys who are quite active and to watch them interacting, planning, gardening together with such calm and peace was AMAZING. The teachers were awe struck at the change in the students behavior – we are more convinced than ever that gardening is such a healing therapy for at risk youth.”

We met one of Bent On Learning‘s inspiring founders, Anne Desmond, at a Flawless event I attended with another Star Client, psychologist, Dr. Renee Clauselle. Celebrities who love yoga flock to this cause, such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Molly Sims, Russell Simmons, Kelly Rutherford and a celebrity secret of mine, yogi Eddie Stern, whose Soho Ashtanga studio is low-pro and real, still after all these years. (as in 5 am classes)

Bent On Learning “offers instruction in yoga and meditation to students in grades K through 12 in New York City public schools and youth centers as a means of reducing stress and improving concentration, self-esteem and overall health.”

Free Hugs.

Looking like a re-incarnation of Jesus and John Lennon in one, Juan Mann began Free Hugs, one man’s mission to give free hugs to everyone in the street in 2004, in Australia. He has thankfully inspired imitators around the world in part due to the above Youtube video featuring Australian band Sick Puppies, which has been viewed over 70,000,000 times plus the obligatory Oprah show appearance. In these tense times of public demonstrations, it’s good to remember, maybe we need both, OWS and Free Hugs. A NYC secret is you can get free hugs in Union Square on any given day with some sweet kid toting a “FREE HUGS” sign.

williamreesecompany.com

Leading to next month, I am headed to Art Basel Miami Beach where I will be covering street and community art for Metropolis magazine as well as shopping a community art installation for 2012 with Jon Porcelli, who traveled the world, congregating 1000′s of nude folks with artist, Spencer Tunnick.

Got a little place right on the beach, I plan to avail myself of the free bikes in Miami and pedal around all low-tech, sensual and touchie-feelie-like. See you next month, on the other side!

    !

The ground flowed backward beneath us
in a long streaked line of pale gray,

The end of October 2011. NYC.

Brother, you ask me if I have ever loved. Yes. My story is a 
strange and terrible one...

Ho Hum.

When a person appears like a lucid dream, we wake up to our immortality. To fight it like a Priest is a torment of self flagellation. Vampires and their victims are not suckers, they are choosy dieters. Natural selection. The seductresses here, Chloe Sevigny, Marina Abromovitz, Bjork and Carrie Brownstein are powerhouse “it girls,” exuding an indie-perfume monogram of pheramones – like a flower or fruit or prolific, Pro-Life human driven to press its genetic DNA forward, forward…into immortality.

Although I found the novel mostly dull, with the exception of

one seXual teXtual eXcerpt  (rated xxx for literary sex)

the passage where two black stallions tear through a dense forest to Clarimonde’s castle where she lays dying and calls for the maudlin and besmitten priest to issue last rites. The journey to the castle called to mind the power of Madonna on stage writhing to vast Steven Klein’s images of her with a black horse for the Confessions tour. Romp with it then, herewith, the textual horse dispatches thundering upon the path of your night…scented couplings…and the Clarimonde scent reviews.

Two horses black as the night itself stood without the gate,

pawing the ground with impatience, and veiling their
chests with long streams of smoky vapour exhaled from their
nostrils. He held the stirrup and aided me to mount upon one;

then, merely laying his hand upon the pommel of the saddle, 
he vaulted on the other, 
pressed the animal's sides with his knees, and loosened rein. 
The horse bounded
forward with the velocity of an arrow. Mine, of which 
the stranger held the bridle, also started off at a swift gallop, 
keeping up with his
companion. We devoured the road. 

Witch-fires ever
and anon flitted across the road before us, 
and the night-birds
shrieked fearsomely in the depth of the woods beyond, 
where we beheld
at intervals glow the phosphorescent eyes of wild cats. 
The manes of the
horses became more and more dishevelled, the sweat streamed 
over their flanks, and their breath came through their nostrils 
hard and fast.

Aroma M. by Maria and Alexis. Wholeness to the brink of insanity. Chloe Sevigny and Vincent Gallo.

Lolita and urban Latinas, Exotica Bombshells, as the inspiration for the makers of the Cherry Bomb Killer perfume, plus the horse description in Clarimonde, have repeatedly brought me close to insanity with their scent conjured for the Clarimonde project!  Maria Mcelroy, creator of a dainty line called Aroma M., scents inspired by Geishas, in collaboration with Alexis Karl, sent Immortal Mine, scented with their words: “soil from an unmarked grave, blood from a slayed Wyvern, the sweet elixir of dying jasmine and fading neroli…essense of smoke from the funeral pyre…” Nope, Bloomies does not stock this…yet!

“Immortal Mine,” as indie-perfumer Head Honcho, Lucy herself wrote, “Indeed, as I linger over the last of the perfumed wine that fills my mouth with ambergris, musk, rose, honey and chocolate, that scent rising up from the back of my throat, I sink more deeply into the fragrant complexity on my inside wrist, and would myself seek to dream such vivid dreams of ultimate and Immortal Love.” Other Clarimonde Kids have been similarly smitten…read the sultry take on the Clarimonde story invented by Tarlesio. And Gadzooks!, perfumer, Monica Miller captured in a poem exactly what is so enigmatic about this “Immortal Mine.”

For me, wearing the scent brought the words “wholeness to the brink of insanity.” And oddly, another immersion reminds me of being a little girl, being enveloped by the wool overcoat of my Father, protected yet vunerable in his love and his scent. Another cold morning, a deep draught of the ungent reminds me of a brandied, candied apple with light flowers showering around. Um, yeah…this scent is orgasmic and it keeps changing its messages. I am more than a little enthralled with it. (and submitting to Gothica in Gotham…had to go there!)

Thus…

The coupling this scent reminds me of is that of Chloe Sevigny and Vincent Gallo in the movie Brown Bunny, with Bud’s relentless black and white rain soaked car journeys and obsessiveness that can only come from Immortal Love. Having brushed shoulders with both of these enigmatic souls, Chloë Sevigny, whom I surprised one evening as she stood alone, all-dressed-up, smoking, puzzled and deep in thought in a Paris hotel hallway and Vincent Gallo, at the book signing for his Brown Bunny film book, shyly signing my book, and then later dashing out of the store unto the street muttering hot holy words to himself like a madman, I admit it, I Love them both hotly!

...and the black silhouettes of
the trees seemed fleeing by us on either side like an army in rout. We
passed through a forest so profoundly gloomy that I felt my flesh creep
in the chill darkness with superstitious fear. 

Samples of Immortal Mine will be available for purchase by contacting Maria and Alexis at info@cherrybombkillerperfume.com.

“Two Spectres Riding on Nightmares”

The showers of bright sparks which flew from the stony road under the ironshod feet 
of our horses remained glowing in our wake like a fiery trail; and had any one
at that hour of the night beheld us both--my guide and myself--he must
have taken us for two spectres riding upon nightmares.

“Two Spectres Riding on Nightmares”

a double entendre of words, dreams and horses, are the odds paired in author and Master Perfumer, Mandy Aftel‘s new fragrance for the Clarimonde project called, “Oud Luban.”  She writes of “a story of extremes: austerity and opulence; sin and holiness; carnality and abstinence.” I ask, could there be any couple in love and art more fitting that description than Marina Abramovitz and her lover, Ulay?

Mandy Aftel, Aftelier Perfumes and Oud Luban.

Marina Abromivitz and her lover, Ulay.

“Oud Luban” offers you the sharp citrusy floral topnote promise of a heavy winter liquor thrust into your cold hand. As you sip and warm to its fire, you fall into Frankenscense (the milk) and finally die in the arms of resinous “oud” heartwood, the most expensive essence in the world, ultimately held by vanilla notes and aged Patchouli. (ok, yes and you are wearing flowing, heavy velvet garments and a sparkling, leather sheathed sword by your side-flank…) See also The Clarimonde Project blog where Queen Lucy perfectly captures the church sensuality vibes, scenthive.com‘s description of Oud Luban’s church incense and the “highs and lows with no middle ground” as Mandy put it, to be transported into the Church of Passion and the State of Lust! (who wouldn’t join those parties…yes, it’s a double-entendre;-)

The image on Mandy’s postcard sent with the package spoke of the old Europe folk working the Earth and reminded me of Marina’s “Balkan Erotic Epic,” where both men and women gave their souls and sexuality to the the fecundity of the earth and the rain.

Aftelier’s “Oud Luban” can be purchased in a super cube of solid joy here.

Sangre Eau Parfum and Lip Stains by Monica Miller for Skye Botanicals.

Bjork and her lover, Matthew Barney.

But when he found them slacking pace, the guide reanimated them by uttering a strange, 
gutteral, unearthly cry, and the gallop recommenced with fury.

Sangre Eau assaults like a shock of blood, violence or a sudden flash of a camera, an artist stealing someone’s soul. It has the beat and thrill of an urban garden of cultures clashing and shocking, like an early Madonna song, a Courtney Love melt down or a Bjork-Shock of warbled Pagan Poetry. I get hit with smoke and much-used colored pencils. Wax and a hot porn paperback. A Ron Galella black and white photo of dinner with Warhol. Up and out at 3 am, laughter, glasses shattering, risky behavior. Temporality loved so much, hovering between laughing and crying and know the feeling will live on only in memory or by repeating the formula. Is Sangre Eau perhaps a taste of addiction? (I love him, I love him, I love him…she loves him, she loves him, she loves him…ad infinitum.)

Monica conjured the dark-urban spin on the Clarimonde story inspiring me to think of passionate, couples who carry their coupling into every fiber. Bacchus into a corner!

An innocent, fresh bright sun morning, the kind only possible after a day of the season’s first snow. Black coffee, lover still sleeping in a white tousled bed, I slip on red leather Moroccan slides to check the mailbox, where I hope the other packages from Clarimonde have arrived.

They have.

Even though I know it is a dream pillow, I have barely gotten through the layers of packaging and the scent rises up like a cloud. A nap with the pillow, designed to mimic the “Oriental perfume that lingered in the death chamber of Clarimonde” (eeeew!) granted me folklorica images of sleeping close to the ground in pine needles and the valerian root, violet leaves, roses, lavendar buds. orris root, liatris and patchouli (why did almost all the perfumers have go there?! to patchouli? what does that say about your hippie lover who reeked of it?)  I saw images of embroidered lederhosen strapping in my lover’s heart, probably because Ayala Moriel‘s scents are all natural, artisan perfumes and I happen to have a favorite kitschy image of alpine love as part of an artwork in my home here:

which naturally brings me to my favorite nerdish couple, Fred and Carrie of Portlandia. (their take on postal packaging later)

Tower 1. Paradise Found in the Dream Pillow.

Tower 2. “Paradise Lost” perfume from Parfums des Beaux Arts.

Monday, Twilight. New York. Halloween. Alone. Writing like a Nerd. NYC.

Dear Diary,

This Paradise Lost scent reminded me that midweek last week I was invited to trip upstate to the Winery at St.George, a massive de-consecrated church built in 1912 by the family of John La Farge converted into a Winery. (yes there are La Farges there!) Twas the perfect spot to contemplate losing oneself to tripping on pleasures secular and sensual.

At last the whirlwind race ceased; a huge black mass pierced
through with many bright points of light suddenly rose before us

The hoofs of our horses echoed louder upon a strong wooden drawbridge, and
we rode under a great vaulted archway which darkly yawned between two
enormous towers.
Some great excitement evidently reigned in the castle.

A 2007 Sebastiani Barbera, Sonoma Valley, that is.

And I quote the maker’s True Words. (the words of Tom, the incredible sommelier and owner of the Winery’s words are a blur…)

It is very supple and harmonious in its flavor purity and aromas. The incredibly fresh, dark, garnet color is immediately striking when the wine is poured. The aroma is filled with black cherries, blackberry pie crust and pureed blueberries with hints of vanilla and baker’s chocolate from the oak regime. The flavor echoes the nose with rich, concentrated blueberry and black cherry fruit. The wine has luxurious mouth coating tannins which effortlessly glide along the palate, providing structure and rich framework.

Servants with torches were crossing the courtyard in every direction,
and above lights were ascending and descending from landing to landing.

When is wine like blood, like a song, a book and a perfume? (yep, this is a segue…)

When it is Paradise Lost.

Paradise Lost Perfume inspired by words in Clarimonde, “A twilight blue oriental perfume.”

This scent is the descent into the dark woods, the wardrobe or cave to discover magic. Thankfully Paradise Lost means that it may be found. The object that will bring it all back, the perfume, the person, the vampire, the prostitute, the sex toy, a draught from the fountain of youth in Dr. Heidegger’s study.

I obtained a confused glimpse of vast masses of architecture--columns,
arcades, flights of steps, stairways--a royal voluptuousness and elfin
magnificence of construction worthy of fairyland.

royal voluptuousness? fairyland? elfin good fun? welcome to NW Kearny Street, Portland Oregon!

Getting outa Gothica and back into Gotham, I flew back in a flash to Portland and to our nerd Lovers, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein. They really toss it up when their new sex toy arrives in the mail. Because if you forgot the breadcrumbs to find your way back and are not tossing it up laughing all the way, life is a vampiric horror movie all the way.

Thanks Dear Diary, Over and Out!

Thanks to Ellen von Unwerth for her inspiring Heidi. Other pics by me or claimable, let me know!

“Growth for the sake of growth is the philosophy of the cancer cell.”

- Edward Abbey

“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”
- the late eminent economist Kenneth Boulding.

“When Saquasohuh, the Blue Star Kachina dances in the plaza and removes his mask before the unintiated, this is the 9th sign.

-Hopi prophecy

I-somewhere, dancing on a verdant globe.

When the world is running down, it might look just like this. Endless mosaic ribbon snakes of small cars, attended by the poor, the homeless and circus performers squeezing everything, their homes, beds and grafitti, into every available crevice on the side, middle and on highways choked by traffic snarls, while the rich zoom overhead in their helicopters to and from supreme, pristine highly-paid for well-designed spaces. There, dancing in that opened Pandora’s box of Earth, Sensuality and Expanse hidden in lush planted sunlit parcels, are those with power for the practice of new realities, surrounded by the Earth’s battery  w i n d i n g…d  o   w    n.. . . . as the Amazon moans,crashes,burns and disappears under a blazing sun.

I-am in Mythic Brazil, Sao Paulo, city of 11 million people, invited to speak at an international design conference on our Art Intervention in Milan. Design? Design?

BOOMSPDESIGN 2011 is the name of the conference, bringing international artists, designers, architects, manufacturers and designers to present and mingle on their disciplines. Invited by the seven-league boots promoter Roberto Cocenza, I spoke about the urban art intervention project we did in Milan for April’s Salone, you can see more about that and other presenters, here on the Green Provocateur blog. The immersion into the maze of Sao Paulo, new architecture experiments such as Dror’s Magic Carpet island above, followed by a left brain Amazon jungle-side visit ….and crash course! The whole idea of “design” and design in Brazil for me went way beyond the trifecta of Niemayer, Campana Brothers and Marcio Kogan which most identify as art, design and Brazil.  Herewith are some trends I saw in Brazil as blueprints for the future. Visit our Twitter chat #artdesignbrazil for a taste, a little old-school Twitter on Machine Tech to envision an even Newer Technology being impulsed, Bio Tech, based on biology, which, as far as we know, at least for the next generation,

we will need these biology bodies and the Earth as umbilical cords to in order to operate said Machine Tech.

trend 1:   i propose “I-not.”

Yup, very Buddhist and very post-Steve Jobs. Very necessary millenium drop I-ego for Earth survival.

The eyes of the Soul of Everything is watching. Can we embrace a childlike exploring of technology of caring and consciousness to re-design what is slowly killing our planet?

The pillars for this idea came from a touch down into the edge of the jungle and a term heard at the conference:

not-architecture.

The genesis is Amory Lovins whom I first heard speak about Negawatt power. not-architecture. Architecture that disappears and melds into the surroundings, nature and community. A structure that binds and contributes because it’s principals, materials and laws are founded exactly on and in accordance with nature.

The value is less not more.

Hail to Rudolf Steiner to Bucky Fuller to Chad Oppenheim’s philosophic approach to an “non-technical” method of building…in the ways of ancients and in accordance and relationship to flora and fauna, weather patterns. Hail also to Japanese architects CAt, who survived the earthquake and came to Brazil to tell about it. Their design for this highly functional and inspiring “non-space” and a school based on L shaped walls to create open classrooms allowing energy and children to live in conversation with the surrounding forest…took in more and built less. Less is more.

I-not is actually a technology.

The technology of I-Not or Nothing holds Buddhism as its Papa and Nature as its Mama. I-not. We do belong to the Earth as caretakers, vs. exploitative, ravenous and thoughtless unconnected creatures. After Steve Jobs’ visionary planet cruise, I am only invested in a philosophy which sells answers via undoing the need and salve of buying, figuring things out based on old time motives.  Absorption by Nature vs. Naughty by Nature bypasses selfishness and fear. Taps into innate wisdom like seeing a surprising beautiful guru, a natural scene like this spectacular tree known as Tortoise tree, or Jaboticaba,with flowers and green little balls covering its limbs. This can make one drop all assumptions and know that the real universe is a work a bit larger than oneself, flowering, fruiting and prolificating like…wow.

Ideology based on personal assumption is headed to the graveyard. Which may just be our cities. This Graveyard for Carnival Props and Floats reminded me of the most potent image I bring forth from this trip:

On the side of a massive 12-lane highway maze, a half-naked, half ceremonially dressed dark skinned man with dreadlocks to his knees performed a slow and deliberate trance pantemime looking simultaneously like a Tai Chi warrior, a raindance shaman and/or just another homeless person living on the side of a highway doing a prancing dance of a man driven insane.

Not having an I-definiation for who or what or which of those he might be, will always be my image of Sao Paulo…its potential and its precarious edge.

But hey, we have trends to unravel and carry on about.

Herewith, just a few impressions of this Maze of a city. One photographer I met called it the “infinite city” and certainly a transverse of it lasting hour and 40 minutes from one end to the other with row upon row upon row of boxes, whether favelas (no windows) or tower boxes upon towers upon towers of square glass windows eyes blinking in the sun and the buzz-by of dragonfly helicopters. Yep, infinite.

trend 2:  I-not-online shopping: streets are gifts. gift box shops.

Get down. Down at ground level, Brazil’s boxes perhaps pay endless homage to the le Corbusier visits which began in 1929. While the golden triangle and green roofs would be welcomed aspects of his 5-points of architecture, the box formula partial to “white space” proportions, the use of simple materials such as concrete, and strong “ocean-liner” window concepts make for strong brand identity.  Like strips of gift boxes, unrelated at all to each other, the spirit of play reigns, although, truthfully, groundbreaking design in fashion, home or goods stamped with SP or Brazil is not to be found here on the high street. There are stellar exceptions, for which one must reveal thru an online surf before hitting the vast turf of SP and treading the streets.

The above proportion formula is repeated endlessly with color, texture, size variations. An exception, a design store intrigues at night with surface, neon and a sense of peeking under a door.

It turns out to belong to quintessential architect, designer Marcio Kogan’s Micasa Volume B, StudioMK27, whom I interviewed later for Metropolis magazine, who gave, (no surprise) the most poetic, abstract, smarty answers on the rising of Brazil as a design leader.  In terms of the world’s urban architecture vernaculars, by default or design, this proportion is pleasing and may theoretically be the genesis of I-not urban architecture for its minimal material and form expression. Would it play in NYC? Think Apple store cube. Add solar, green roofs and grey water systems and maybe our cities might be trying vs. dying.

By day, my friend from Rio, Robert Landon, Lonely Planet and Telegraph UK writer, and I set out to explore the upscale neighborhood of Jardim Europa. A contrasting unforgettable image to the dancing Indian man here, was a super-tall, extremely handsome grey haired man with tall black riding boots taking massive Goliath strides down the street, I think leading a dog, it was all so astonishing, I can’t recall. (and if you want to see how I saw this exact image prior trip in a Jurgen Teller image…click here…except this Amazonian Europa was much more dashing!)

Above all, I wanted to see Alexandre Herchcovitch, (nice video there…make sure you see it) a favorite Brazilian designer of mine, with commadre Romanian heritage. Yes, the image of a biting vampire can fit his quirky expression.

trend 3:   I-not-kindling. books still matter. matter still matters.

The Livraria da Vila book store designed by Sao Paulo architect, Isay Weinfeld, was truly a gift. Weinfeld captured the way one enters what seems to be a square of paper and cardboard is actually like the turning bookcase, the classic secret turning bookcase or wardrobe to enter into vast mythic worlds.

Once inside you can fall into rabbit holes down to the children’s section for #2 perfection and #3 is the repeating motif of double lights like traffic lights. Why is it so good? It makes no sense yet is entirely sensible.

trend 4:  I-go-not-hungry. so satisfied by sao paulian gastronomi and partyin.

Cristallo coffee at their cafe with silvery wrapped chocolate spoons was surprise #1 and the second was bubbles of popping chocolate powder in the drink!

Brazil food. Moqueca fish stew. Bahia chicken in a curry sauce mushroom mousse. Pao de Queijo, cheese buns. White pizza chips. A massive buffet at the D&D Decoracao & Design Center restaurant (in Brooklin, another manifestation of SA’s US and Europe love) where we met in person, the powerhouse gals from Marcia Dadamos of MD,
Mariana Amaral Comunicacao, sister PR firms with Jade Dressler for BOOMSPDESIGN along with Vania from D&D. Viking sponsored a brunch party in their indoor/outdoor showroom where we feasted next.

In bright sun and an 80′s music chill backyard vibe with every perfect silver powerhouse bbq and outdoor range ware flexing themselves for the serving of serious Salmon Carpaccio, quinoa with tomatoes, scallions and greens wild. Grilled strawberries in balsamic vinaigrette and gelato spoons served in metallic beads of sugar were the gifts of the Viking Executive Chef on site, Luis Fernando Perin, who worked with Daniel Boulud, and now travels around the world with Viking. Casa Vogue here and watch this movie for more:

By night the crowds roamed to super lit cubes with graffiti for a lil house music sprinkled with a folk singer, champagne and caipirinhas at design store Marche and Coletivo Amor de Madre, for the launch of new Friendswithyou prints.

We met so many good people from around the world, convincing us of SP’s place as a global meeting ground.

Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval lll of Friends With You are the sort of guys you keep running into, over and over again, sharing some jokes and definitely feeling friends with you.

Their happiness is popping up all over too.
Glauco Diogenes is an earnest explorer of color and form, very upbeat and prolific. Looking forward to a NYC visit soon.

Triplets! Here I am with Francisco Spratley and Tiago Borges, two of the architects of Anywheredoor, instant friends from Barcelona but obviously brothers popped from the same womb as I.

Robert Landon, journalist and Chad Oppenheim, architect.Phuong-Cac Nguyen of coolhunting.com, revealed another peg in the “it’s a small world” tree. Her publicist for her book, Total Sao Paulo, is none other than Lynn Tejada, our LA partner at Green Galactic.

Esther Schattan of deluxe storage systems, Ornare, in deluxe grey velvet and Paul Clemence, artist.

Such a lovely girl, to match her coat…Patricia Toledo works as the SP point person with Zoe Melo, product developer for the likes of Tord Boontje, Hella Jongerius, Peter Stathis, Stephen Burks, Takeshi Ishiguru and Fernando & Humberto Campana.

King Dror of NYC and the owner of Marche, originally from Israel, who never stops smiling and Dror, who never has to smile to enchant.Renaissance designer of spaces both humorous and sublimely elegant, Guilherme Torres’ newly tatted arm and his space, which I could move into in a Hot Minute.

Here are the Gelato spoons and below this fruit herbal jelly gelatin thing with herbs fed to me in the jungle;-) that I cannot identify. But it was a friend’s mother who fed it to me, and I could identify her, so OK. Oi!

trend 5: I-not-on-a-track mind. sao paulo attracts an international crowd.

  From France, designer Mattali Crasset, like a pop-art scientist in a turquoise lab coat with white straps on one wrist and a black cuff on the other presented her designs such as her Feral Houses. Next up. she exhibits at Paris’s Pompidou Museum.

From Japan, architects, Kazuhiro Kojima and Kazuko Akamatsu, otherwise known as CAt, spoke about influences such as movements of air, they showed lots of arrows and concerns not just one big flow, when they thought about air.  They spoke of the flow of light, wind walls and the change by movement of sun. For a school, they considered sounds, the surrounding forest and activity of children and how visions and experiences of all were corralled in by moveable L-shaped walls.

Dror’s Nurai project for an island in Abu Duabi, was inspired by the idea of magic carpet….lifted for treasures. The island remains pristine, buildings cooled by green overhead, materials and systems all in consideration of the Island eco-system.

trend 6: I-not-techno brilliance. Chad Oppenheim.

What an honor to meet Chad Oppenheim, whose star goes on my wall with other brilliant yet very grounded people I am thrilled to know. Another 70′s kid from New Jersey like me who has a one track mind to the integrated world, Chad designs masterful cantilevered pools in LA for superstars like Director, Michael Bay, houses in Mustique for David Bowie and hotels in the desert rocks in Jordan… all by asking how to replace nature that is replaced by building.

“People bring me to sites and I don’t want to build and mess up the land!”

My I-pad notes from Chad’s presentation at BOOMSPDESIGN are full of I-not-architecture turn-on terms, literally like this: Infrastructure, porous wind turbines. Surfers paradise. Rainforest trees inside. Habitats in terraces.Tidal energy generation explode.Technology of simplicity. Roof camouflage to make structures disappear within the environment, designing closed loop of energy. Working with locals to create economy. Abt experience not form.

Chad Charts the entire biological system before building.

For the Wadi Run Resort in Jordan, Chad took eight hours to walk around the landscape, within a hour of where one of the seven wonders of the earth, Petra was built into the rocks.

The not-architecture follows the occupying shadows for placement and the arising forms are abstracted natural form.

Much has been debated about projects like these, however, Chad’s direction is entirely in tune to the environment, beyond just the surface beauty. From the official statement…”The resulting experience is sensual and sensitive, intentionally reduced to what is essential, establishing an ancient connection with the universe through simple, elemental forms, sincere materiality/detailing, and the use of bountiful natural resources both physical and ethereal. Nature accelerated, enhanced and embraced; nature nurtured.”

From my notes, poetic…describing the spa…Use of cisterns. To use the water. Candlelight.

Is it surprising that back home I have candles set by an intriguing favorite image of a man kissing his camel at Petra with some fantasy photoshopped jungle next door?

trend 6:   I-cultivate + harvest. my own sustainable wood from my own forest.

Visiting the serene oasis, Etel was the best example of a visionary closed loop business. Etel owns and maintains the forests that supply the woods for their furnishings and you can feel it. The space is designed so light, woods and objects sit nobly like trees in a forest. No surprise to see longtime customer Chad Oppenheim shopping here when we visited. (definitely a reach item however, for amusement I asked the NY showroom for a quote on a barstool and at $2800. per, trust those 4 babies shall be carted home in an Ikea box via taxi. Sigh…I am a recycling fiend so maybe that equalizes.) And do excuse the fuzzy pics, I was being hustled along to get across the street to the above mentioned Viking party, where…among other fun…
We sat with Chad, enthralled while Arthur of by kamy, a rug manufacturer laid treasure after treasure before us made of hemp, wovens, natural fibers and rugs that were recycled and pieced, plays on traditional patterns and weaves and even whole carpets that were batiked. The one that looked like water running was my favorite.

trend 7:  I-not human, An Avatar in Amazon country

Hours and hours of driving after the conference took us to the jungle-side casita owned by the CEO of a major global corporation. We arrived at night and finally I could rest, inside my Indian prayer shawl and the silent wool blanket cocoon of the casita…big expanses of silence begin to talk between sleep and dreams. I was lulled by endless variations and dreams of a white house underground a carpet of a green farm roof like Dror’s with water and solar panel energy receptors above ground to channel energy for food stores and refrigeration underneath. In the morning,

I open the door from blackness to bright rows of juniper trees teaming with dragonflies, green hummingbirds with squeaking pulsating flitting everything and the shock of “real” life. An I-adjustment, an avatar world. Twos and twos and twos of birds and flocks of butterflies and insects are trapezing together on every platform of interstitial space. From the ground where insects crawl in their own pursuit of happiness like San Paulo cars in traffic to way overhead soaring Turkey Vultures and Birds of size and color I have never seen before.

On this one path, in bright sun and dappled darkness in 100 feet I must have seen 100 species. This one purple butterfly did the same dance for me that its NYC counterpart did just one month ago, calling my attention and landing for a photo.

A black butterfly with cherry red fruits as wingtips or an immense air slicing of lemon yellow silk will swing by your head…recover and a tiny grey and white monkey with round black furry ears is above looking at you tilting his head between eating fruits.

Stop and breathe and you notice 4 of his friends lounging in the tree also with tilted curious little people heads. We try to talk…I imagine they are like the Cheshire cat.

Loved the pool, amphitheatre cozy enough for 500 and five outdoor kitchens, all Viking accessorized but not the caged exotic birds, a toucan, macaws and the like, which apparently is common practice in Brazil. On my romp around the property on the full moon day, pondering the riches and scarcity of the Earth’s resources, I imagined I was like these lovelies in Fernando Amorosolo’s painting. Between al fresca yoga and nature hikes, like a geek, I played with images of water, glass, sun and the full moon which could be seen in the day sky.

The raised beds of lettuces, herbs and fruits and vegetables were so hearty and could exist anywhere…yes? Country or city! Concrete and farming are becoming friends…they have to.

trend 8:  I-not just fashion, maybe I grow my food too. Farm store.

Back in Sao Paulo, The Farm Store  is a forward thinking clothing store opening up the box to integrate nature through its live-plant walls and rainwater capturing systems, however, the unequalities of Brazil rage on all around. Across the street are tiny shops where a crowd of unemployed men hang out drinking. Not very much different from any forward thinking outpost, but clearly this is the colonial system of occupation and overthrow we have always seen.

From 40 dollars for a small pizza at an upscale restaurant to a one hour and a half drive and still be in the city of Sao Paulo amidst all the positive creative beings, buildings. It is beyond immense and dense. I have never seen anything like it. “The infinite city.”  Yes.

I-not is I-finite.

Happy to have met Emmanuel Rengade in Paris many years ago, who has created two organic, wireless retreats integrated into the communities and arts that surround them, just hours from Sao Paulo. This was my footprint in Brazil, with the seed for the artist Pasha‘s project on the land at the former coffee plantation, Fazenda Catucaba. The mythical doorways are oriented in directions to tell a timeless story about Brazil and hold the dreams of the viewer in present time.

I-not.

Happy that architects and planners like Zachary Aders are working on urban farm solutions for the favelas of Sao Paulo.

Until then,

perhaps this grafitti, opposite the wall with the baby and space umbilical cords and across from the Farm store, this little gem of bio-machine tech merging richness, can inspire

like a Blue Star Kachina unmasked in the Plaza…

and protect and carry the dreams, trees, machines and children of Brazil forward. 

24 little hours: september NY fashion week 2011

given to looooonnng form journalism for blog posts and just back from speaking at a BOOMSPDESIGN design conference in sao paulo brazil as of tuesday morning, having made no #nyfw (hashtag new york fashion week) plans other than fixating on getting my clients, 3 austrian accessory designers in the press…I cave in.

i cave in to #fni.  hashtag fashion night in.

i cave in to no caps and twitter language. i resisted so long and finally i realize that holding the caps key costs me milli-seconds…DONE!…(well, i did decide “select” caps is the new black)

i cave in to invites.
i cave in to the fast lane and pre-empt my brazil post with this snapshot of 24 hours uptown downtown during #NYFW. utilizing every fashion blog ploy in the book, just because it amuses me DAMMIT!
i cave in to the examined life.

life is happening where you are. NOW. especially if you are not at #nyfw.
so…i cave in To Chronicling. maybe my life can inspire children and teens, give comfort to those with more meaningful pursuits than fashion. In fact this may force me to develop golden egg widgets to purchase that home in montauk.
perhaps this will reap me writing, tv gigs and party invites…herewith most of the self pleasuring i can account for publicly in my last 24 little hours.

friday
4 am

twitter about the fashion shows I am not seeing as i beseech editors to see 3 viennese accessory designers in a sea of Kardashian Kouture.

i wore this silver leather and lemon green yellow bubble bauble thing from designer FLorian…everywhere… in brazil and #nyfw. love it. florian worked with hussein chalayan and his work can be seen in london’s v+a museum and paris’ colette. plus plus plus.

diane pernet tops her shaded view in a FLorian crown…

speaking of hats, #2 vienna delight, muhlbauer hats are totally charming and thanks to my pal montgomery frazier, legendary mtv vj downtown julie brown is a new fan joining brad pitt, yoko ono and common.

#3 rose beck’s 60′s glam is really getting to me in a good way, we love her ipod and ipad holders in this textured leather she calls eyelash, here’s her lookbookSS12. fashion host katrina szish is flipping for these. (more on that later)

other lookbooks HERE.

10 am

skype w sicily
clients dedi and augusto check in from the of lush vineyards of settesoli

11 am

we are talking the opening of amaranto, the new boutique dedi salmeri has developed with maddalena grassi polito in milan’s baglioni hotel which follows #nyfw during #mfw. loads of delcious new designers…more to come on this gem!

pitching pitching pitching pitching all day

4:54 pm

my to do note is now to do nothing. it’s friday. the bell tools for one who has now worked a 13 hour day with about 6 more to go. I take stock of the blessings of the day and journal write propped up on pillows like diana vreeland.

6 pm

don fake and fab fake missoni dress from bcbg I found at salvation army (YES!) with white silvery merrell sneakers and that silver and lemon/green yellow necklace of FLorian (AGAIN) and head downtown.

7 pm

meet saxon henry of adroyt at parigot on grand street for a st germain and champagne toast to her social media consultancy and my fashion world. love this little vision at the bar.

8 pm

head over to walker st for the boffo party with our gotham pr pal courtney’s client planar, supima cotton, MAC cosmetics and depesha magazine from russia.

very russian scary

very club kid, soho white men and girls and fashion people peppered crowd

and sexy surreal singer sasha, with whom i hung out last #nyfw, with claude serieux our DJ from paris. made another plea to her to PLEASE release his version of her n n n n n n new new york song, which we all LOVE! puh-leese pretty lady!

and my new my andy-like voyeur habit to chronicle the dance between unknown people to give them their 15 minutes:

the art, except for this ceiling view, was not as memorable as the flash flash flash flash atmosphere.

the v magazine cover captured the geometric metal gem flash of the party as did this…“born this way” odd “jean jacket” art, i like it for its mystical goofiness. (and whenever I see a unicorn it reminds me of one of my friend’s favorite charactors, “the quixotic unicorn” who speaks in a baritone and slowly answers sphinx-like any questions put to it)

come out of the party and…

8:55 pm

katrina szish says she loves the eyelash bags from rose beck for appearances and a CBS segment. hooray! i think she is quite appealing. (warning: pink and fuzzy begins to be a theme in this blog as the evening progresses, why else does anyone head out on a full moon during #nyfw?)

on the way to raouls on prince for pink champagne and more st. germain we spy fuzzy rabbits in the window of house of berardi…

and inside a cute dress to go rabid on someone (could not resist…dress and pun)

this is my favorite blouse. i like this style. back at the #nyfw #desk and fuzzy the next morning, i review the lookbook. i like.

back to the fuzzy evening

9 ish. raouls
debate with gorgeous nicola from bologna on Maurizo Cattelan, King McQueen and Matthew Barney. golden french fries and rose and st germain, the pink neon glow of raouls, franco my favorite bartender in nyc and a model waiting for her adorable boyfriend who soon appears…

a walk back through soho reveals some good window shopping

moncler, which i predicted like 7 years ago would conquer the world!miu miu is forever my favorite!

dr. martens comeback! and #hashtag in window!

monika chiang is like an ode to the goddess.

Saturday morn
9 am

to do list
twitter and download brazil pics
YOGA
black and white quinoa with cilantro, broccoli, garlic, mango sauce and goat cheese

pal, cator sparks, now at lookbooks.com refers me to fashionindie.com site for future #fni’s all thru the year…yum.

11 am I decided to fight the cave urge and dress up to go to coach’s book signing for Glenda Bailey harpers bazaar‘s greatest hits book.

ever since first meeting her, i have treasured memories of her. she always said hello and meant it. from watching her and Stephan Gan find the same tent side exit to dash from a Karl Lagerfeld show in Paris to catching her eye at a crowded chelsea gallery opening, i love glenda. dealing with her office could not be more efficient or pleasant. that’s IMPORTANT.

1 pm get dressed
2 pm coach on 57th street.
I am not a coach girl (total look) but you would not have to twist my arm to adore their snappy plaid raincoat or some other choice gems discovered at the store for glenda bailey’s book signing. “the total look” is one of my favorite fashion proclamations (source is a secret sauce)

these leopard pumps could be rocked rightly

hott pink sneaks i would do…

yet…y’all know. these new miu miu’s are much more me.

wait! wait! my lovely, stellar employee Amanda Lanza, whose queen mom RUNS miu-miu retail just flipped them off her feet when she came home the other night?  OI!

meanwhile, back at coach retail…

Is Jade here yet? (Glenda is about to sign me)

3 pm Glenda signs “you are clearly very (underlined) harpers bazaar, with best wishes GLENDA.” (if she wrote the same thing in your book, DO NOT tell me.)

4  pm.  my 4 favorite shots from the book

daria werbowy in balenciaga (i do love my mobile camera for the ufo it adds) and i love the texture sex it got with this coat close up.

this spread of gemma ward by patrick demarchellier has always been one of my absolute favorites.

and natasha poly by peter lindbergh gets 2 shots here with camera and looking trips. one clear and one fuzzy. i actually like the fuzzy one to portray the “memory” feel of the image.

and this…polina kouklina by solve sundsbo is a favorite too.

4 :30pm

on my way home to cave in. first a little cave in to style blog trick #1000, street spotting of style. here, a cutie couple hopping off their bike to go see a movie. she is rocking pink and coach, please note. also watch the cute little lady popping up in the background. i cannot help myself, so enamored of LIFE!

4:40

camera rule #1000, remove finger from aperture.

4:54.  Cave in.

very hp at home with bags. and YES i found this ombre cuteness at salvation army. perfect size, not proclaiming anything, no logo, no pertense, just simple and serviceable.

and just so you see how much pink, fuzzy and sparkly rules my life, here’s a snapshot of my #nyfw command central, my desk.  (and don’t front…you have lil magical ritual things like this that pop up at the right moment in your life too…)

On hot summer weekend family car trips, my sister and I were boxed, strapped in and propped up like child dolls on the pearlized olive green, poly-damask hinterlands, Grand Canyonesque landscape aka the backseat of the family Cadillac Eldorado, as its cushioned mass thrust fast forward, gliding at 70 plus miles per hour on the freeway. Out of nowhere, the Biblically-proportioned hand of my father at any moment could appear from the North driver’s seat and do one of two astonishing and reactionary things.

If we giggled or fought or clicked the ashtray lids (it was 1970-ish) too many times, like the bored caged and carried animals we were…the hand came swiping back to hit whatever was in its path with a loud “Girls!!” If things were on the upswing, Frank Sinatra 8-tracks had turned the car into a 1940′s lounge and Pop was feelin’ all’ ight…the hand moved to grab one of my mother’s breasts and as she fought off the hand, the car energy rolled and bounced with their laughter and soft-fighting hands somewhere between the rolling human flower petals in the wind image above, and the Caddyshack became a bobbing Snoop Dogg car with a James Brown type of screaming soundtrack.

Fast glide further forward to 2011, to a recent astonishing video seen in a “end of Summer” exhibit at White Box Gallery, of the mesmerizing pulsing bounce of the deep, deep undersea world where savage sharks do their daily thing and devour a submerged pig nailed to a cross by the video artist. The mind-check that occurs from watching the lyrical, natural and sensual moves of the water, the sharks and the fluid carcass at the same time fielding the morbidness of the almost human looking pig…was the very definition of Savage Beauty. More on this very savage, yet secret, deep sea garden fact-of-life snippet later.

We are somewhat carried through both beauty and horror everyday, reminding me of the stark truth of the riddle of the Sphinx, “what travels on 4, then 2 then 3 legs” and then none. A human carriage is like a ghost, carried, crawling, walking, walking with cane and then none. Womb to tomb, cradle to grave, this is the track of our lives.

Welcome to Life’s Savage Beauty, the title of the seminal blockbuster exhibit of designer, Alexander McQueen at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum, which seems to be the perfect moniker for this Summer memory, Alex’s legacy, and these times, after those fast curve ball life-changing heavenly eclipses of the past months. (what? you don’t read Susan Miller??!)

Savage Beauty + Secret Gardens. The summer is full-on, finishing up under the intense, hot sun of Leo and August, where now the brave heart is stronger from being pried wide open to perceive and receive…the most light and heat. Where secret gardens can flourish and savage beauty can be met at once, all in the circuitry of life, represented by the Hebrew letters above in the highway photo. The Alexander McQueen exhibit, with lines wrapping double on both sides outside the museum, wound us all like an endless labyrinthine line deep into the museum where the exhibit hid like a secret garden of delights and horrors. The hours of waiting became a deep and profound gift, also perfectly symbolic for these times.

The show has become perhaps the most lyrical pop-art of this time and note…one of the most popular shows at the Met…ever.  Where death, images of women, patriotism and identity have struck a note with many way beyond fashion. Why did this show of fashion touch a nerve? Coco Chanel made the history books because she freed women to dress comfortably and sporty, new news to reflect a re-found as-free attitude – more like the boys enjoyed. Now, most people do dress in complete freedom. In the absence of rules, the only couturier who could trump Chanel’s gift and give us a fresh spring of water, is the one who undresses the very idea of dress, clothing, bodies and boundary assumptions.

A coutourier operating in the mindset of the Star Wars, Avatar and a future bio-anime morphing generation. A highlight, at a precise moment of the exhibit is a black glass box, approached only by bending and peering into it with the crowd to reveal an enigmatic hologram of the tiny Kate Moss, an angelic vision, much like of Princess Leia beseeching in Star Wars. Goosebump-producing. (Here too a version as captured by one of my favorite fashion video artists, Lina Plioplyte.)

One of McQueen’s shows, a chess game drama, highlighted for me a thread this month, how we squarely meet our thoughts and reactions to anything alien to us and then hence each other. McQueen blurs our encultured consciousness of identity with toss ups of biology, culture, beauty, savagery and ruin while rendering fabrics and bodies alive either with fluidity or restriction. This meeting, this circuitry, this mind-melt and heart-felt is this Master’s gift.

I was fascinated this month by people meeting and connecting at all levels. On the plaid chessboard and checkered streets of New York, what we carry upon ourselves or what square boxes and boundaries we put ourselves in to carry us like speeding square cars and trains during the day, square beds to dream in at night or even the New York liberation of the formally square ritual of marriage, marking the cultural shift and meeting of a basic human definition + construct re-arrange. I have been Fascinated by our arbitrary and increasingly useless boundary definitions of species, gender diverse characters and roles, constructs of how and through whose eyes we see the world and nature. This summer spoke to me beyond the square window of my computer screen. It spoke through every curve of McQueen’s couture and through the spaces where dirt, graffiti, Nature, mushrooms and pushy plants thrust life at us at the crossroads of square window flower boxes, square tree gardens and concrete blocks. Tiny signs and voices of “alien” life on city streets. You can say it is my attempt to tame and embrace the Savage Beauty and Humanity of New York City, above and below, somewhere on Earth. Somewhere in Time.

It’s morning, the Heart of the City, Central Park…come meet me and let’s take a trip…

This concept of meeting the “Unfamiliar” or “Alien” is much like our notion of “dirt” or weeds or even, “the other.” It’s good to question our assumptions and test if they are backed by or promise certainty or absurdity.  Certainly, Dirt as Earth is all right by itself. Quite a miracle, regenerative, forgiving and life-giving. However, anything not in its right place in our air-conditioned worlds is termed dirt. Perhaps this concrete is dirt to the richness underneath.  Certainly, with the relative size of the Universe to our brains, even massed together, certainly, Aliens may visit at anytime. Good to figure out how to get along with our own kind so we are prepared. I’m convinced its our Visa for further travels of all sorts. In the meanwhile, if you saw and met this girl on the street, hers or yours, who would be the Alien?

Everyday meeting the preciousness of the planet and its peoples. The lady above is wearing “Tracht,” introduced to me by an Austrian designer I am working with. It refers to tradional Austrian or Germanic clothing and the translation also means “what one carries or wears.” Designer Rose Beck created bundle or package-like handbags from this idea. Juergen Teller produced a limited edition book of the same name….I became enthralled with the idea of Timeless People meeting on their way to traipse in Trachts or Tracks through the Black Forests of Eastern Europe with Precious Packages…or anywhere.

and on New York City Train Tracks…another kind of Tracht…animalistic tracking, posturing, mating dances, sharing Ipods, glances, silliness…two Jewish boys meeting, teasing, perhaps enamored of each other and giggling on a NYC subway platform is a Ballanchine dance performed live.

The bed of a Hasidic Jewish child from James Mollison’s book, Where Children Sleep, captivated me this month in the disparity of where children go each night to dream, as their own secret garden, around the world. Why are our beds and homes square when life is a circular process?

As always the circuitry of visual and verbal weaves into our dreams. The pouty intensity of the Hasidic boy lives in the smug pride of a New Jersey Goth girl groupie headed with her band for their gig at a 2nd Avenue college bar. Is this not the same face as a McQueen mannequin which follows her…?

and the same swagger and hair curls of a hauty Chelsea window box?perhaps this glove, seen the next day, belonged to the Goth girl? Tossing it like the tendrils off the window box?

off the balcony the next morning…these windows neatly shared their wildly planted window box and these people sharing Ipods happened to see me.

In this image of an ape, a black macaque who took its own picture, are His/Her eyes any less deep and playful than the couple above? The photographer who dropped his camera while following a band of apes said, “I walked with them for about three days in a row. They befriended us and showed absolutely no aggression – they were just interested in the things I was carrying.” This one grabbed the photographer’s camera and had fun taking pictures.

Also sharing the same planet is Riyuta, and here is his bedroom in Tokyo from which he scouts the world. Serious uniforms obilterate differences or bring together like the coordinating visual cacaphonic uninforms of these two friends visiting New York from Japan.

and also living and breathing now, compare the plaids and chaos of this child in China and the bed she sleeps in with…the overstuffed world of this little very pampered girl in Japan.

to the feisty red check windows on a fields of encroaching ivy on this building in New York. Like the anti-consumerist and anti- “it bag” of the Tracht-inspired handbag of Rose Beck, the aforementioned lyrical accessory designer from Vienna, who was inspired by the bundled packages carried by people on the move, things are messy, but serve real purpose. Walk this way, a little wild, a little reverent, it may the only way to reconcile the suffering we know concurrently exists in the world and create consciousness of alternative thinking by the reality and craft of manufacture and the message of the objects we choose to carry.

Back on the block, another kind of stringing up, woven and tied Nature. This bow statement in Chelsea was a theme of the whole house…

with the surprise of a huge leaved plant leaning, bobbing and seemingly protecting the house.

This reminded me of this couple I photographed on the subway, visitors, anxiously bobbing up and down checking the map, checking the announcements, checking in with each other…literally tied and joined at the hip.

They seemed to be from South America and their bountiful bodies and abundance of connection to “what to look at to get there” reminded me of the Looking Glass box of McQueen’s show, forcing the audience to look uncomfortably at itself, and then a reveal of fetish artist and innovator, Michelle Olley, attached to a breathing tube, layering references lavishly, from Manet’s “Olympia” to Rousseau’s “The Dream” to Joel Peter Witkin‘s image “Sanitarium.”

Abundance of bodies, reflection and connection is a stark contrast to this “bedroom” of a child in Brazil. The one thing my friends who have traveled to impoverished areas say, is that seemingly when people have nothing, the one thing they do have is hope. 

Community gardens are growing in NY and around cities the world over. As I toured the famous community garden in the Village, next to the Time Landscape of Alan Sonfist, this butterfly flitted around me and only stopped when she/he decided it would make a nice picture.  This original native plant sanctuary has flourished since the 1970′s and in some views, like the one below, you would hardly guess this was in the middle of NY. Unfortunately, both the community garden and the Time Landscape are threatened by development according to a sign posted there.

The simplicity of gardens to heal our dramatically tortured souls, communities and planet always reminds me of simple acts of non-violence, my favorite being John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s bed-in. The power of images carried around the world and simple acts between friends and lovers can be those butterfly wings impacting the globe. I’m glad cynicism is dying as simple love arises.

John and Yoko stepped out from the Dakota on the Upper West Side flanked by these pots.
These dragons and bearded Pan of the Dakota are perfect for the cross cultural meeting of bearded John and Eastern-born Yoko!  They contrast the secret gardens of the Upper East Side which are more square and well-ordered…

and the trees are wearing boisterous skirts by the end of Summer…

One of my favorite Central Park trees bears the scar of meeting a fence.  This X marks the spot where we head Downtown for meetings of lovers and healing of city conduits for rain storms, drainage, floral healings through an Art Farmacy…first a peep at lovers meeting.

The meeting of red and white is very symbolic of man plus woman, did you know? This is why these colors show up in comforting classic cafe checks and international symbols of healing. Go read a bit on Kundalini and let me know what you discover!

In the meanwhile…downtown “love-ins” for storm drains and interpretations of window boxes aka “Agbags” from Natalie Jeremijenko’s Farmacy Clinic and The Art of Eco-mindshift. Natalie, whose “real-life experiments include walking tadpoles, texting “fish” and planting fire-hydrant gardens” is in full force on TED.

and I loved this redwood burst of color in this +helsea window box…

Back uptown, these two gorgeous + colorful girl peacocks, in each their own way, met and sat in front of me on the Met Museum steps one afternoon. They seemed to be from Africa from their language and dress and appeared to just come from a drawing class. Their styles, one so “butch-like” and the other so delicate and birdlike fascinated me for the whole time they sat.

McQueen’s peacocks and the dreaming beds of two African children from the book…

…and a beautiful wired “a tree grows in Harlem.” The neat bricks, the flowery contact paper…the plan + the wild.

a little further south and east colorful elders take respite…and a couple stroll together with their walkers. When did they first meet you wonder and how long have they been traveling together? The savage beauty of McQueen shoe, is another kind of walker. I was outside in the lush countryside, reading the exhibition book, and came to this picture of this reptilian shoe and then suddenly…

randomly flipped to this image of a dress bodice, this face on a heart, upon which the intensity made my eyes tear up, how can we not be in communication with the “aliens” we share this earth with, I thought, and then…this little alien being, with just that face, fell upon the table next to me.

This was precisely a McQueen moment. The blurring of boundaries of art, life, bodies and beings. As we allow them to meet within us, this possibility of permeability between forms becomes a communication incapable of senseless destruction, fear or separation. Yes, forms evolve. Respect and consciousness must meet for Peace to reign.

a random white rubber glove on the street and…the promised shark feast upon the pig carcass.

A pair of bulbous mushrooms, doing what fungi do, arising indiscriminately from decay and death, even in a square of earth on a busy city street…

are they not from the same mold as McQueen’s bold rubber latex dress and hair skirt?and as sinister and lovely as the eerie, mysterious and poisonous “destroying angel” mushroom?

Let’s face it. In the state of the world today we are going to be meeting life and death resurrection in every moment. In what is in the news, carried or worn by ourselves or others. In how we take in sensory or mental information. It begins with sparks. thoughts. associations. sentences from our mouths. meetings. judgements. decisions. It all matters. It all creates matter.

To feel savage beauty is to bear compassion and respect for all life. And like this Jurgen Teller image from a Marc Jacobs campaign, once you feel that, being sensibly grounded while enjoying a sense of humor and lightness at this game, this game which must be dreamed and played well…well then you have met your match.

In a week I am headed to the highway to the hot and lush secret garden of Brazil, for the first time ever, for a design conference, BOOMSPDESIGN, in Sao Paulo. We were invited to speak for our Green Provocateur project. I saw this image of a boy last week with a balloon or kite and it seemed to speak to hope, children’s dreams and Biblical hands. Catch you on the other side of Brazil’s delicate mobile of green beauty, thrusting favelas + visionary dreamers + …

When I was about 6 my mother gave me a book called “Somebody Came.”

Supposedly a gift from my Grandfather, who had passed away 4 years prior, I took it like a gift from beyond, as it was a lushly illustrated story of a little girl and her Grandfather, the keeper of a bright green magical crystal ball egg in which she could see and choose her future. The old man was very protective of the ritual of looking into the egg and kept it packed away in a box at the top of a closet in their big, isolated farmhouse surrounded by verdant hills. Impulsed by her desire for playmates, he allowed her to look into the egg, and depending on the order of a rhyme he had her sing to the plucking of petals from a summer flower, a kind of “he loves me, he loves me not” song, either “Nobody or Somebody came” in the form of children coming to visit as magical appearances in the egg, singing her name.

A little reminder riff on perspective in life.  Choices and how to ground our glass half-empty, glass half-full Ego sing-songs in a steady reality.

This cosmic dance tune cycle from May to June to July moves from the earthy sign of Taurus and The Grounder to Gemini, The Twins into Cancer, the sign of The Nurturer in July. The energy moves from grounded practicality and sensuality to Gemini, the air sign that is Ruler of Everything Dual: reflecting the possibility to shift the realms of the mind’s quickery and quackery to its destiny of divine design ruling a mutable but balanced duality.  Who is coming? Depends on who you entertain and amplify today in the crystal egg at the top of your closeted (?) mind. Who and what will you choose to nurture?

The Shape of the Outside is the shape of the Inside. Balancing “voices” or perceptions is not homework assigned in a mental clinic. Identifying, naming the characters which appear in our mind’s egg with all their mixed messages of chatter or brilliance and deciding whether to listen deeply, asking them to work a little with us or telling the announcers of tired, old news bulletins to “just take a hike” is the power to harness our energy for Good.

Our private dramas playing out on the stage of our minds operate much like a closet, either a place to hide stuff or a box of creativity where we dress ourselves to reflect our dreams. The Kabbalists say this time is perfect to balance these dualities. We can also trace this “shizophrenia” in a positive way to the Eastern philosophy of the koshas, or sheaths of bodies or intertwined layers of consciousness or lives. Your neighborhood yoga teacher or Yoga magazine is already prattling on about our energetic bodies with their Gates of Perception or Chakras, all with their own voices and characters as if the balancing were as easy to reach as the white pants you pull from the back of the closet after May 31.

This month street art, graphics, characters and graffiti seemed to reflect some of my hidden voices, like the Nine Lives that Live in Me as Responses to Life’s Triggers so that the space for what I really WISH for and what I want to nurture to come alive. I decided to name the Nine Lives to somehow either tame or cultivate them.  A choice to see a Whole Verdant Crystal Egg full of possibility rather than some sort of scattered Sybarite Schizoid Sybil. Friendliness to all these personas keeps dancing in checks and balances. A little schism is a like a little spice to to lead to higher heights.

While a famous crooner sang, “We are “Nobody” until “Somebody” loves us,” our “Somebody’s” first begin with ourselves in twinkling reflection and evolution. For moving from Duality into a Verdant Nurture cycle at the beginning of Summer, here are my 9 summer WISHES, lives, trips, loves, spaces, faces and places I’ve been lately. Somebody, Nobody, Somebody Came.

Anna Fischer photo

ONE. WISH: I AM A CHANGELING. Dress Me Up In My Love. I am Somebody: I am Isabella Blow catwalking in the smartest clothes on Earth.

A Goddess of Dandy, Isabella Blow, and her discovery, designer Alexander McQueen, were always like imaginary pals in my mind’s egg. Superlative visitors into everyday life, amping up imagination, she with her madness, 9 million hats and clothing and he with his runway spectaculars that made me moan. Herself a sartorial vision, mutual friend #3, Daphne Guinness, paid homage to her two friends with her performance in the windows of Barney’s, with Isabella’s resplendant closet opened to the world on the opening night of AQ’s homage at the Met’s Costume Institute this year. (See her article in Vogue here.)

I choose this glimmering apparition, this Alexander McQueen catsuit to begin my Nine Lives explore. A brilliant reflection of the gyrating soup of electrons this skin spacesuit of ours really is. (Yes, number 15 is a shoe.)

Rick Owens leather jacket at Kirna Zabete. This is what we call a “Sandwich” mind trick. Of course we love McQueen and the cool bio-jackets made from mushrooms that follow. But can we get a cheer for this mushroomy buttery pure indulgent leather confection from Rick Owens? it’s not PC, it’s not fast-fashion, it is meat in the middle per say… and it is not even mine yet. But it should be. Somebody, Nobody, Somebody Came.

Other garb I am feeling is Biocouture, organic Kumbacha clothing by designer Suzanne Lee  to “new pedigree” clothing sculpture by Schmidt Takahashi, made from elements of previously owned clothing with the added bonus of being able to contact the former owners.

Suzanne Lee of Biocouture has not quite figured out what to do when it rains as the mushroom goop becomes re-constituted, but she is at St. Martins in London and they do experiments like this and make TED videos from it to inspire us.

Schmidt Takahashi are two design school alchemist friends from Berlin who not only re-constitute vintage garb into new designs, they give the scan code as a kind of DNA way to connect online and, like a green crystal egg, discover the father and mother previous owners of your hybrid remixed new clothes. You decide: TMI or NBFF’s?

T’is true we are all connected and discovering new friends through what we put on our bodies may be a new amped up shopping therapy and perhaps more intriguing than Facebook. (OMG, physical connection? more intriguing than FB? NFW! WWJD?) As it is said in the Yoga Vasishtha, an ancient Sanskrit text: “For the ignorant person, this body is the source of endless suffering, but to the wise person, this body is the source of infinite delight.”

…and speaking of that…

TWO. WISH: I AM A SQUIRED WOMAN. I am Somebody: I am a James Bond Girlfriend.

I’ve had this vintage Esquire magazine for awhile and love the cover girl, a James Bond teaser, spurring him to action. Complete with cocktail ring visits from my own life, it always makes me smile. Esquire is so testosterone in that burly, man-scented way so I was thrilled to see the spanking new furniture line, The Esquire Home Collection at ABC Carpet and Home launched with a little highball spirit-ual gathering (many pieces bear the names of cocktails, of course!) A by-product of the Esquire Houses, which created and hosted ultra-loaded abodes during celeb-fetes like the Oscars and Cannes, the furniture no doubt is an easier sell. Everything is revved up… coffee tables on steroids are 10 times bigger and more man-cave cuddle than they should be…

Bond chairs, perfect for bondage, seem to weigh tons…

…and the liquor cabinet makes me think a man might close me up in it, spin me around and saw me in half. Oh, don’t I wish. C’mon, you know I mean metaphorically. It’s a steamer trunk of liquor. Def a green egg to make Somebody come.

THREE. WISH: I AM A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH.  Babymaking, Billy Holiday and Bubble Tea in Brooklyn. I am Somebody New in Iconoclastic BROOKLYN.

At the first Brooklyn BBQ rooftop party of the summer, the tar beach is perfectly-peopled with former world-touring tattoo’d heavy metal guys, lithe models in toga minis and digital genius’s touting Beta-models on matching single people for baby-making. ( the next “to-do” after you come out of your closet, discover the parents of your clothing and decide to breed ) Also on the set, a hyped-up indie-father, a Pizza Empire Entrepreneur babysitting his 5-year old who slept soundly while a 25-year old, too-old-to-be-a-child, dancing too close to the roof edge is escorted out.

We sit and sit and sit and sit and sit…and slowly watch the sunset over the Manhattan skyline, “that brain beehive over there.” Absorbing watermelon, burgers on the grill, simplicity and tonics. “When we want to play, we play. In a happy setting, we’re getting, some fun out of life…”

More Brooklyn Love goes to my friend Richard Velloso and his new atelier/shop, Olga Guanabara, a new gem in Dumbo. Olga being Richard’s fat, lovable chocolate labrador retriever and Guanabara, meaning “bosom of the sea” from the Tupi-Guarani language, reflecting his Brazilian roots. Richard ditched his advertising career to engender new furniture from the reclaimed and gather delights from artisan friends. The real deal is the pieces built on site, a combo of said found objects, the purveyor’s bespoken edicts and Richard’s creative whims. Is it not less steroid than the Esquire furniture and tons more lush and resonant?

Hear this. Brooklyn and Summer to me is always about music and I discovered an afro-pop, jazz fusion, rare soul and old school hip hop internet radio station called Basement Soul Radio, the perfect beginning of Summer of ’11 soundtrack, where Billie came wafting in this month. Like my idol Chanel, Billie grew up abandoned and challenged. Lady sings the Blues, names her dualities, demons and desires. Life has challenges and suffering say the Buddhists, and this is exactly where we must keep finding the flower to put on our head or adorn our perfect Chanel suits and pop on as a dandy boutonierre, because those moments are perfect for transcendance and new births.

Of course, in basement soul deep connect, the subway art on the way to Brooklyn summed up this duality deep dive.

And, the perfect drink to a Remix of Suffering, New Birth and Humor? Bubble Tea.

At an art opening in Chinatown, I was coerced into drinking this foul concoction of tapioca balls (bubbles) by a cadre of Brooklyn hipster gals, promising virtues of bliss and convinced by them and the bright ads, I took a few sips. Tapioca bubbles are not happy nor a key to getting some fun outa life. I liked the signage way better than the elixir.

FOUR.  WISH: I AM A NU-SOUL: I am Somebody, I am The Dalai Lama’s Sister. I am a PEACE WARRIOR.

Fear can show up in a shortened breath or an all-out life-threatening situation. The gig is to make it an ally and I discovered recently, that naming the perpetrator of a silly irrational and repeated fear monologue of mine, “The Blithering Idiot,” (said with a smile) really took the power from it.

It can be said that fear and anger are the primary destructive forces on the planet and in our minds today, thus, defusing fear with understanding and compassion makes the Dalai Lama the man of the moment…every Now moment there is.

“Finding inner peace is a pivotal precondition to making positive change in the world. People change systems, not the other way around, “The world belongs to over 6 billion human beings, not governments or religious leaders,” the Dalai Lama said. “The world belongs to people.”

                                                                                                                                                 Newark Peace Summit image: Associated Press

The Newark Peace Education Summit, held recently in Newark, New Jersey was the brainchild of two men, Drew Katz, a philanthropist millionaire from my hometown suburb of Cherry Hill, New Jersey and Robert Thurman, the renowned Tibetan scholar. Newark is the city in which I was born and where my Grandfather and his family prospered. The confluence and conference was a bit like a gorgeous green egg taken down from an old dusty closet shelf. I thank Visionary Mayor Cory Booker for that too.

“On the same panel you’ll have Nobel laureates with an anti-violence street kid talking about their collective experience and sharing it,” said Drew, who first conceived of the conference two years ago when he met Robert.  The Dalai Lama, along with a diverse group of speakers ranging from actors, Edward Norton and Goldie Hawn to activists such as a former member of the Bloods street gang to Jody Williams, a peace activist from Brattleboro, VT to Earl,The Street Doctor who tirelessly reaches out to teens on the streets to a 12 year old girl who spoke for her generation sat equally on a panel. The Street Doctor’s encounter with the Dalai Lama was the preciousness of Pure Heart. I rubbed urban zen shoulders with both Donna Karan and the impressive kids whose Newark schools work with Goldie Hawn’s charity, The Hawn Foundation, a program for schools teaching emotional and social intelligence. It’s gonna take more than facts and figures to heal this planet.

Grateful the Lama is everyone’s Grand Papa.

FIVE. WISH:  I AM A SIMPLE MONK. A wish for a Peaceful HOME. I am Somebody living in My Concrete Desires.

When my home turf of NYC makes me feel like this…

…or grey and tiny and dirty not in the best way, it suddenly seems to be the month of May and May is ICFF, International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York, a world where people live clean designed lives with the best, bright furnishings. Last month, we reported on the green and sustainable industry leaders for Metropolis magazine and particularly loved this collection from Spain.

Arxe is a kind of Peace Collective with home spun concrete values and spare, clean and raw, earthy vintage products textiles for the home made of salvaged, antique industrial materials such as wood, leather, iron, concrete and steel with strong appeal. The hands at the top of this post are from their site reflecting the value that gardeners know well, that glimmering satisfaction when you get your hands dirty with solid work.

The concrete place. Designer, Alex de Betak and actress, Audrey Marnay’s home, featured recently on the cover of New York Times T magazine, lounges lazily on the Spanish coast. I got the skype-on-a-laptop tour of the place from a friend staying there last year and I declare, it is my ideal idea of a home for me and some Arxe furniture. Somebody, Nobody, Somebody Came.

SIX. WISH: I AM A FREE RADICAL. I am Somebody: Forget Simplicity! I am a Drag Queen Gypsy Drunk on Color, Flowers and Sensual Imbibements.

I am declaring it “The Summer of The Free Radicals.”

I see everywhere elements of gypsy-esque expressions. Very androgynous. Very bright and mixed with every kind of style. There is a baggy to the knee and tight on the calf dirndl pant showing up on men and women. I see lots of light ends and tips on hair of all kinds and bright mixed patterns everywhere. I see grape-crushing flat simple sandals. Big hippy pouch bags. New places of piercings like the middle of a face, and it’s not the nose. Green Tea cannot stop these free radicals.

This colorful caravan of women from around the world, in cheerful flowery garb but ego-distinct foul moods, sat together randomly underground on a Monday afternoon while the world roared and purred above them. They represent the Multi-Mooded Personas in my mind I have come to name My Own Drag Queens, no reference at all to those hard-working showgirls, all due honors go to the damsel of distress called PMS. C’mon gals, break out the real flowers, aromatherapy is here for YOU!

Up above ground, a meeting with one of NY’s original indie perfumers was the colorful counterpoint reminding that catering to the senses is always a free and radical idea.

Maria of Aroma M is a painter and expert in Japanese culture who is the “chef” of gender-neutral, artisanal perfumes mixing ingredients such as absinthe and dark chocolate, lychee with rose, and white chestnut blossom with muguet. The layers and “sexiness” of the scents is undeniable. “Beauty is a Daily Responsibility,” and so dutifully, we met Maria at the Rubin Museum, haven for heavenly art, with its tonkas of multiple bodies, forms and on-high views of Highly-Dressed, Non-Stressed Queens and Kings.

Like a mysterious fortune teller, author Julie Chaplin left a signed copy of her book, “Gypset,” at my Pal Joey’s place, Shangri-La Studio in Brooklyn, and I was drawn to it. I was captivated by it’s profiles of the traveling surfer, artisan set living in treehouses and bohemian rhapsodies and so I borrowed it from another friend when a copy appeared Again on her coffee table.

One Gypsetter in the book, jeweler Carolyn Roumeguere, grew up in Kenya and lives in a treehouse there. Descendant of Isabell Eberhardt, the heroine aka The Nomad, who dressed as a man to live in Islam in the Arab world, her intention-filled life pays grand homage to her grand lineage. Carolyn roams the world and this particular gold bracelet reminds me of the Kabbalist’s talk of shattered light, the broken pieces of our original soul and the work we do here to join this scattered light and wisdom into a whole place again.

And to float it all way above our heads, thoughts and wishes…the kites of artist, Jacob Hashimoto in his exhibit, “Silence Still Governs Our Consciousness.” is a real call to nurturing the Free Radicals in our auras.

SEVEN. WISH:  I AM A BUILDER.  I am an architect like Jeurgen Mayer H. I am Somebody FUSING ORGANIC VISCERAL GEOMETRY with every move.

Mushrooms, Fungus, Crystal Light + Architecture, Communications and New Technology = $H!T Happens in Berlin.
An ungainly title for an exhibit, yet Berlin, art and life philosophies are best when undeniably linked.  We recently met all three in the person of brainy pollinator and architect of space and thought, Jeurgen Mayer H, along with the exhibit co-curator, Tyler Greenberg, at the wine and brain teasing invitational at the Relative Space showroom party. They invited a co-generational cross-section of Berlin designers, who in turn invited others to join in curating the objects in this “….happening.” Speaking of organic matter, Brian Greenberg, principal at Relative Space, was the most knowledgeable sustainability thought leader we encountered during the design week events and we adorned him with praise in our second post for Metropolis entitled Trending Green.  A simpler, gentler title, yet reflecting the perfection and promise of my new life credo: building and feeling a perfection of organic geometric fusion. (fancy-talk for LOVE)

Jeurgen’s recently spawned LOVE-ly, fantastical Metrosol mushroom in Seville is covered here in Architects and Artisan‘s article. How many times have I seen this exact structure in my dreams? Many. Imagine building it!

Paul Clemence images

“Spiritual Technology” are words that came to me to describe this feeling of brainiac love. From new explorations of Kabbalah and sequential systematic re-organizing of old thought patterns there is a fluidity in structure that conceptually is my latest credo.

EIGHT.  WISH: I AM TIED AND BOUND TO COMMUNITY. I am Somebody forever binding, bonding lifelines to Senses and Essence.

Most people know the word yoga means union and it also means tethered. To be bound or in a bond with an idea or others. They used to say that art made by women always was “crafty.” And so what. It’s always good to touch a Superwoman Vibe of traditional crafts and culture as I saw recently around New York. Get into it with this video of the Senses & Essence exhibit at FIAF, French Institute, Alliance Francais, part of the World Nomad Festival with three Moroccan artists, Amina Agueznay, Safaa Errus and Najia Mehadji.

The entrance to Moss in Soho for ICFF echo’d this rope forest.

…while underground, above the throngs of commuters in a downtown subway station, a swirling twiny sculpture, an unexpected gift by just looking up. Proving that sometimes the way to tether thoughts, lives and impulses is to exactly allow swirling.

NINE.  WISH: I am a MENTALLY TRIPPING Somebody at the Movies: A Wish for Bliss.

And above the subways, I thoroughly enjoyed two movie premieres this month, both spoke volumes about Wishing,Traveling and Freedom.

Owen Wilson plays Gil, an OK Hollywood screenplay writer about to get married to an upwardly mobile blond and scary fiance who is expert at shopping for $50,000. furniture while he just dreams of living in Paris to finish his novel. Woody Allen doing time-travel was unexpected and made for silly light Summer fare. 

The first scene in the German indie film, “Vincent Will Meer” (opening nationwide and in New York on June 24th, see trailer) has the lead charactor having a Tourette’s Syndrome episode in the middle of his mother’s funeral and running out of the small church to huddle in front of the church entrance, overwhelmed. A very exaggerrated scene of anyone’s stress, it introduces a road movie of brilliant acting. Lead actor, Florian David Fitz, also wrote the screenplay. Plus he is veeery easy on the eye.

The next scenes of Vincent and his father as they root through closets is nothing like a mystical wishing green egg scene.

Institutionalized by his politician father after his mother’s death, Vincent  is “adopted” by Marie, an anorexic and they rope in Vincent’s obsessive compulsive roommate, Alexander. Vincent’s mission is simple. He wants to bury his mother’s ashes in the seas of Italy, as was her wish.  The trio escape the clinic taking off in their doctor’s car they in which they alternatively drive each other crazy and sane in touching ranges of their afflictions. These “conditions” distinctly mirror large doses of sanity, breaking down walls of separation or categorizing of what is “normal,” “healthy” or “disturbed.”

The green egg of the mountains holds them in a safe crystal of expression where literally their spirits run free.

The last scene of the movie is Vincent saying good-bye to his Father and choosing his own path. We are left wondering if he will choose to see his girlfriend again as she is tied against her will to a force-feeding life support system. Begging him to free her from it, he has told her he cannot help her. She will die if taken from it. By “abandoning her,” he ultimately gives her back her own will to survive and thrive. Whether he will return to her or not…Somebody, Nobody, Somebody Came is the mystery of the movie. 

May Your Own Dreams Come True This Summer.

FACE-IT.

Everyone is Tired. Stressed. Imperfect. Where is the new news? It’s Spring. If John and Yoko can wake up wide-eyed, prop themselves up in bed and announce a Love-In…so can you.

Note to The Spring in You…I rarely roll out my laundry list but in the mode of celebrating it vs.complaining….my typical day’s schedule begins like a marathon around the world…I am stressed…but I love it.

• 4-5 am. Up. Espresso, intense yoga, writing, music.
• 6-8 am. A mix of European business, my spa, bagno, shower.
• 8-9 am. Dress.
• 9 am. A TV segment shooting a client’s stem cell surgery.
• 12 pm. To the Downtown office.
• 4 pm. Uptown. A premiere of “Your Highness,” the new …movie.
• 7 pm. Downtown. A meeting for our im.material village in Haiti.
• 10 pm. LA calls.

Existing somewhere between an imperfect glamour giddy like Carrie Bradshaw, R. Crumb‘s yogi brother in the Terry Zwigoff/David Lynch movie “Crumb” and a visionary athlete like Yoko Ono …it’s no wonder I have dark-circle Bette Davis eyes. As one of my business partners in the entertainment industry says, concealer is her best friend. Concealing or Complaining is not my way.  Celebrating, yes.  One cannot ride two horses. Compost the Complain. Decide that your 20 hour, 2 days into one “day”schedule is your Art.

My Art this month took place between NYC and Milan, two high-paced cities, a weave of new “understandings” via a very New Moon Spring cleansing and a firm grounding in the Fullness of The Big Moon. This Time has been like a collective Shamanic moment between the Year of The Rabbit and 5 million planets in Aries to open the Spring.

I am loving the roundness of Time and seasons, the transformation of spaces through art and architecture co-mingling with the transformation of Self through symbols and actions ranging from shopping for shoes for grounding, plastic surgery, indulgent desserts or happy joy Spring symbols in golden yellow flowers everywhere. Everything we do is choice. To be embracing the juice of Paradox of either Exalted and Wretched States. Is your life a Mythical quest or same ole same ole? Are you awake yet?

Here are my top 11 ways to Wake Up, Feel Up this Spring and trade the same ole “stressed and tired” to “artful and energized.”

ONE  Value Imperfection or The Physical Impossibility of Imperfection in the mind of someone Perfect. (thanks Damien)

I happened to notice that the plastic surgeon’s office (of the above-mentioned TV segment) was a literal art gallery for Hirschfield portraits of women famed for large, expressive distinctive parts, from the stellar noses of Barbara Streisand and Bette Midler to the wide eyes of Bette Davis and Judy Garland. The full color, slick photos of generic and unknown “fixed” women were a crazy contrast to the business at hand…removal of such parts. For sure the value of distinctive parts was clear from the art and even its own intrinsic value, to be discovered in the future, weighs in on the side of befriending what we may see as wretched and turning it into Glory.

Trust me, when compelled by a force greater than me to weave plastic surgery, a comic movie, some desserts with art and a whirlwind Milan trip…it is a bit like a Holy Grail…a chaotic mix of life’s aspects…a seeming imperfect soup…how the hell will I get there? The little wonder of why the hell I write floats along the excitement throughout the process right until the end. And the quest for “it” is driving.

Just those moments that seem to be “not” are really where “is” is. When our “imperfections” result in beauty. When wretchedness inspires a fresh, glorious start. When a green shoot is tired of the dark and cracks the soil. A thought: art interwoven with life, expression for something other than shopping, acquiring, hustling and dragging through a busy day.  Just Because we Felt a Moment, is the Moment to savor.

In the movie, “Your Highness,” when the lazy, selfish Prince Thaddeus is faced with the opportunity to pull the sword from the stone, and all he wants is to go home and lay in his bed, that is just the moment of Truth, Change and Possibility. He Grabs It.

From lazy to inspired.  From weed to brilliance.  Another friend brilliantly has an answer for people complaining about “all the work” and their “busy lives” and “it’s just too much!” with…”This is not Work. This is Art.” We choose our tasks, our grails and our busy lives. Why complain?  From tiny discomforts to out and out anger and illness the disconnect from Joy is astounding. Can we commit to our Art, it’s tiny triumphs and no matter what?

I think the Earth requires that now.  A friendliness towards the hidden Love in all, even your Dark, your disconnected, your Fear. Circle it back. Find art and beauty everywhere, especially at the point of Power where you think it is Not. Allowing the Good, the basic friendliness to surface.

TWO. Crave Renewal and Cave Underground Like Persephone 

In the Galaxy’s Milky Way, on the Earth re-awakening, in the Spring beginning, in the Chinese Year of the Rabbit, in 2011, in NYC’s West Village, yellow flowers are popping up like gold. The energy is still asking to drop your cares and foibles, get grounded and follow the your stressed white rabbits into a cave where the roots and deep meanings must first be understood to birth treasure.

here, step into this tiny shop…

A Shoe store with an art gallery in the back?

Leffot at number 10 Christopher Street in NYC’s West Village has as their motto, “Nuquam Jactate” or “Never Boast,” which to me is like the Buddhist credo to not cherish the inauthentic small self, but celebrate the Authentic Self. On the day I visited, the confluence and interest of 3 very distinct and equally entranced men in the store was a precious NY moment. Like a Balanchine dance, an older conservative gent, a very corporate young fellow and a super stylish hipster rotated, stopped, contemplated and envisioned around an altar-like table of elegant shoes. This moment spoke volumes about style and actually the 3 top tenets of anything good: make it classic and timeless, pay attention to quality beyond and make space for intrigue and beauty.

THREE: The Art is Way Deep Inside.

Going deeper. Behind the elegant stepping possibilities of these shoes is artist Jarrod Beck‘s installation, Equivalence, in the backroom of the shop. Rody Douzoglou is the curator of Backroom NY, a project of her gallery without walls, Douz and Mille.  Yoko was a forerunner in this idea with bed-ins, we love art appearing exactly where we are to peak the moment, change the everyday into magical.

“Architectural, dingy and layrinthine,” says critic Andy Campbell of Jarrod’s work. (and it’s a compliment.) When the ultimately false God of Time has us strung out and nervous as The White Rabbit, do you remember to ground your emotions into the support of the Earth and rabbit fertility with newness, inspirations, creative pursuit, food, hugs and bigger pictures?

FOUR: Savor the Round and Earthy. The Round Grounding of Glorious Food.

When the heady becomes too much, we go for grounding in food. This month, so many round desserts appeared! So Feng Shui.

This coffee gelato in Zona Tortona was heavenly. Keep your eyes on the dessert please, my nails are a frightening sight (I was in Yoko Ono mode…just installed a green wall at the Railway Station…more about that later. We were in Zona Tortona to see our friend Frederico’s bathroom installation with expressive, detailed massive orgy illustrations and matching live fish in the sink created by his girlfriend who sports adorable golden lion ears.)

EIGHT: Life is a Labyrinth, Take the Minotaur Bull by the Horns.

When in the confusion and clamor of Life, start where you are.

Beginning with the power of design, a belief or a comfort always helps. Religion and shopping may be the opiate of the people according to Karl Marx, in Milan both are elevated to art.  The heart and invention of modern shopping can be felt in Giuseppe Mengoni‘s Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, built in 1861. It was one of the first multi-use public buildings, today housing luxury shops, including the first Prada shop. The soaring space validates life with the same organized, centralized order of cathedral plans, with the dome above and below at the heart with trajectories like arms of the cross. It communicated then and now that everyday activities are sanctioned by the Heavens.

At the center, a mosaic of a bull surrounded by tourists. The tradition is to place your heel on the privates of the bull and spin around 3 times to grant your wish. How much did this remind me of Thaddeus’ trip through the Labyrinth and the meeting of the Minotaur? As we move into the astrological sign of Taurus the Bull, I can envision this Bull-stability and certainly the treasure token Thaddeus won from the Minotaur to take the bull by the horns and get your wishes granted. (see the movie to know the grail.)These photos of the 2008 installation by Minsuk Cho/Mass Studies and Abitare, presented by Storefront for Art and Architecture, the New York-based nonprofit art and architecture gallery are from one of my favorite design blogs, Dezeen. Another example of surprise art and beauty in the public space.

NINE: Imagine, Dance, Travel, Color Right Now.

For a dancing partner, men’s shoes at Valextra on via Manzoni, had the exact plum passion.My eye was drawn to this yellow girl on a magazine cover while in the offices of our Milan partner, Alcos Comunicazione, and I was not surprised to see the same work of the artist, Liselotte Watkins, all over the Valextra shop, one of my favorite brands, as I own a Valextra vibrant green wallet, which I love.

Liselotte Watkins‘ girls have the exact dose of wide-eyed innocence, strength and knowing that for me touches on a female perspective in the manner of Helmut Newton. A strong statement, but can you see it too?

Christie’s in New York has set up this 20-ton bronze teddy-bear sculpture before auctioning it off next month for what the auction house expects will bring in $10 million dollars. Urs Fischer, a Swiss artist, created the 23-foot-tall, yellow “Untitled (Lamp/Bear)” plush toy bear slumped against a drooping desk lamp. Have you too been staring at the computer too much and feel like 20 tons of bronze?

I am reminded of a story I heard at a Friday evening dinner Shabbat that my friend, the elegant Tracy Stern invited me to at The Kabbalah Center in New York. It was about a precious Pea.

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night. 
William Blake

I did my third-grade grade book report on the I Ching. There I was tossing yarrow sticks for the children to access the esoteric but eminently practical ancient oracle from China, based on the same binary code pattern that computers run on. The I Ching is the Matrix of alignment with the seasons, the stars and human emotions. My third grade teacher was astonished by the answer to her question about the classroom windowsill garden’s health. (Thems were simpler days, God only knows where I found yarrow sticks)

In the recent midst of drama beyond the scope of a healthy kitchen garden, I pulled number 11, which translates to Peace. And in true I Ching style, of course, this hexagram relates to the beginning of March and the coming of Spring. The small departs and the Large arises. Synthesising personal experience and emotions for me has always been in tune with the rythyms of nature as a mirror and a conversation. I drop my small experience at the feet of not necessarily what is hot on Twitter but what all of the smarts of chlorophyll, micro and macro quasar-kinda organisms have on their agenda at the moment.

The best part is that it usually is in sync with the world stage.

Currently, running beside the I Ching is movements in Astrology’s 12th house pushing against ideas and emotions of dreams/imagination/past karmic debt and emotional baggage or in other words: our own heroic task of freeing ourselves from unconscious inherited crippling fears and redeeming the family dramas stored up in the cold of winter into new creativity and giving. The small departs, for the new life of Spring. Sinking the small into the earth for transformation and nurturing what may be new growth, new opportunity.

Here are six new Winter into Spring stirrings and secret pleasures arising from my recent travels and adventures.

ONE: THE WORN GROOVES GIVE WAY, LIFE FLOWS ON

The Spring returns and the flow rushes over the crevices, filling them, and moving on, moving all of life forward. Holding a reminder of the past to strengthen for the Future. The giving up in order to give more, love more. These environmental works are by Andy Goldsworthy and the ring is by Linhardt Design Studio, in the East Village, where custom designs from Lisa Linhardt pop up in the pages of mags like Numero and Harpers Bazaar and on the ring fingers of the most inventive brides.

I Ching hexagram image of T’ai or Peace. The Big Male Sun Gold Daytime Light Solid Yang lines or lifespring pushes upwards through the Yin, The Small Female Silver Moon Night time Receptive or Open lines. My secret site for absorbing the I Ching is here.

Chinese Joss paper, is “spirit money” burned for the veneration of ancestors to insure good things in the afterlife. I was connected to Joss paper in a new way this year as the Winter atmosphere seemed to highlight the warmth of gold and the Yang sun energy through interiors, food and wine and the silver or Yin, moon energy in the blue light of snowy New York streets at night.

Another ring thing to celebrate spring and the balance of nature is chameleon jewelry designer and Opera singer Valerie MacCarthy‘s jewels. Binary living in Paris and New York breeds a fresh idea in her elements collections just bought by Colette. Her videos are by our friend Andreas von Scheele and we are excited to represent this collection in the US. Valerie’s water pieces evoke the circular joy of water bubbling up, the solid in the movement.

TWO: THE LAST OF THE WINTER ENDLESS SNACKING: MORNING, NOON AND NIGHT.

Quick Bites at NEW YORK CITY’S GANSEVOORT, EATALY, MONDRIAN, SNACK DRAGON.

Bluebird feather lamps teasing in freezing drafts from the main door in the lobby of the new Mondrian Soho on the preview evening, were the only whisper of Spring when the hotel is set to officially open. Soon all this dashing through frigid to grab drinks, snacks, warmth, nuts and news is sure to pass. The last of the winter snacking to mitigate the cold is meeeellllting!

10 am. Early March is The Armory Show of contemporary art in New York. A pre-Armory show breakfast at The Gansevoort with Cricket Taplin, curator of The Cricket Taplin Collection at The Sagamore Hotel in Miami Beach, artists Samara Ash and Paul Clemence was a love fest conversation on sweat lodges, new artists, the delicate and hearty perfect frittatas and the best hotel amenity gifts everyone has seen around the world. (My vote actually goes for Cricket’s passionate and visionary collection shared with her guests as one of the most priceless guest gifts I’ve seen in a hotel.)

 

A skype with my bi-local NYC/London friend, Shelley Lewis revealed one of her random-share-a-cab-and-become-instant-friends moments was when she met Buddhist Dharma teacher and author, Catherine Ingram, who wrote “The Crack in Everything” and “Passionate Prescence.” Catherine teaches acceptance of exactly that which breaks our hearts and puts a crack in our precious myths supporting outmoded concepts as the basis for a more compassionate melted and friendly heart.

“In the depths of Winter, I finally learned that within me lay an invincible summer.” Albert Camus 

“After finishing my tour, I was edging out on being very burned out, jaded, bored and cynical. The quote by Camus is about…finding that burning sun inside me again. Right on the edge of being completely awful and negative, I cracked. And I found my love for my music, I found my joie de vivre. I found my core personality which is incredibly positive and happy-go-lucky.” K.D. Lang

Life rolls on. We go, happy and lucky into Spring. Do you like my “I took it with my cell phone” photo so it looks like a cool Alien ship landing in the snowy Winter dawn? Soul in Your Spacesuit indeed.

Motto: Amuse Thyself.

of course, The Orb’s A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Center of The Ultraworld just came on the shuffle…so enjoy!

All is Still. February. Indian Snow Moon. Valentine’s Day. In our igloo cocoons, our lives may seem like snow globes, we swim in bubbles of crystalized emotions, new-earnestly patterned seeds, or emerge into the bright sun for spots of bubble globe tropical island vacations, to be starkly burst into the bitter cold airport coming home. (kooky dreamlike music here) The plays of our lives and the players of our emotions, dreams, hopes and wishes do get crystalized in the cold for this Dreamtime. With the promise of Spring just teasing, “Master Love” is in a million disguises like snowflakes.

I felt like Dorothy waking up from her Oz dream or Alice in The Middle of Wonderland recently one wintry evening, when I caught myself pondering the swirling Court of Charactors in my life. The Jester, The Trickster, The Beauty, The Helpful Teacher, The Wolf, The Queen, The King, The Lovers, The Prince, The Princess, The Suiter, The Warrior, The Mystic. In this sudden bubble of illumination like a LSD flash, I saw how characters in my life seemed to echo giant myths and iconic public figures.”And you were there, and you and you and you….” (more kooky music)

On another day as I mind-tousled with one particular charactor’s ridiculousness, I heard these words clearly:

“You Taught me, I Love you, Thank you.”

I wanted to suddenly scream it out to everyone in my Life from a stranger on the street to Twitterworld. “And you were there, and you and you and you….” This “friendliness” towards all of life is known as Maitri, in Eastern traditions. No matter what is, who is or is not…on the Yellow Brick Road to be The Big Kahuna, Oz or The Grand Tao itself, it’s clear this life is a continued dance to cultivate this attitude of friendliness and ease towards oneself and the stages and Plays in which one finds oneself. Welcome to Earth, The Maitri Matrix. The root of the word Maitri, is Ma, and a bit like the urban legend that every Eskimo has 1000 words for snow, the basic sound and the word, Ma, actually means simultaneously, “Mother, Illusion, To Measure, To Make, Create and The Grand Play.”

In honor of just a fraction of the many inspiring, snowflake-original Matrixsters in my life and their funny disguises, I hereby humbly thank and celebrate my gurus of Love, my friends, foes and luminaries (they are really the same) and their lasting influence on the style and craft of my life. (warning: yes my list is sprinkled with yoga people, but also some decidedly not.)

C’mon! We cannot hide our sprouting Love under the snow. It wants to bounce and play. Here, a toast to My Players! Who are yours?

The Lovers:

Mr. and Mrs. Riley, Mr. and Mrs. Jivamukti and…

You Taught Me: Mr. and Mrs. Riley were “married but separated” French teachers both teaching at our high school. (this was pre-80′s, we had big Arts budgets, 3 French teachers and 6 art teachers!) Mr. Riley looked like a modern day Vampire biding his time as a high-school teacher with his tight little everything…mustache, turtleneck sweaters and the slimest, tightest pantaloons I ever saw. You got a sense why they preferred to live separately as she was soft, pristinely and naturally chic and beautiful, with a Gallic, strong and hilarious nature smoldering underneath her measured, neat sweep of side-parted hair, sweater twin sets and plain wool pleated skirts and sensible shoes. They taught me that European intellectuals may have better ideas about co-habitating and why.

On another stage set to the “high-school” and “co-habitation” frequency years later, amid flowing saris and bulky dhotis, I crouched around the Ananda yoga ashram hoti fire with the other Mr. and Mrs.Jivamukti followers bussed in from Manhattan, (omg, really!) Christy Turlington to my left and to my right, my world-weary and totally hilariously perfect, “I-want-to-be-stuck-at-an-Ashram-with-them” bunkmates, Jane magazine writers, Suzan Colon and Christina Kelly. Christina has been called “Jane Pratt’s right-hand weapon, and an arbiter of cool. She was the Oprah of the alternative teen magazine world.” Christina steered Sassy, ElleGirl and YM and her latest sass, her Fallen Princess blog is here. Suzan Colon is now an author and arbiter of cooking with kindness and Catwoman, having bestowed her genius upon Cosmo Radio and Oprah magazines. Suzan’s blog is here.

What does all this have to do with Mr. and Mrs. Jivamukti and The Lovers? Well, we were gurus of the single, hard working, stressed, sarcastic and sincerely seeking, aka The “Young Miss Tribe,” the first to voluntarily crowd our wine-soaked-from-the-night-before-bodies into a closet in the East Village to dress for yoga with Mr. and Mrs. Jiva, two Euro-dance world artistes, somersaulting through yoga in a radical way at 108 miles an hour.  In the early days of the Sharon and David show, Yoga’s first couple, you could still be one of the 50 people in the world who knew what Jivamukti hot and fast yoga was. The Jivas were cooler than cool, wise, sexy and on top of the speed of it all…supremely and calmly in Love.

To the present day, with Kelly, Suzan and Christy all calmly in Love, and Mr. and Mrs Jivamukti’s fast yoga style bringing more people to yoga perhaps than any other guru, ever… I am hoping all that tapas (heat) love-mojo generated by rubbing sweaty ashram-shoulders with them might land me a man-boy Yogi to man-love so I can be The Lover too. Still supremely not so sure about co-habitation. (((or the word Yogi, have never been;-0 )))

For Your Lover’s Dose via Christina and Suzan, read their blogs, for Christy, read US Weekly. For Sharon and David, go sit in front of them.

I Love you, thank you: Because I see you and I believe in love.

Quote: ”OM, Oui.” (none of these people said that, I just made that up for this post)

Style Tips: One can smolder in a swatch of fabric or a cashmere twin set.

The Slickly-Styled Court Jester:

Malik Rice, Andre 3000 and Bill Graham.

You Made me Laugh and Cry: Malik Rice was an ex-boyfriend from Atlanta, the same town as Andre 3000, and could have been his double in looks and style. A music genius and world class runner, he traveled the world with Puma but suffered an early injury. His style basics included 10 of each item: big, bold Alain Mikli specs, crazy hats, suede Gucci’s, a Mercedes equipped with a TV and the best sound system and custom motorcycle jackets from Italy. My favorite was black with lemon yellow accents and had a huge neon orange star on the back. He was a tiny thing (at 5’4 plus stilettos, I had a brief career as the super-model girlfriend) but he rocked massive attitude ranging from an adorable Dough-boy giggle to big ploppy tears to braggadocio swagger.

Another fan of motorcycle jacket Jester swagger was famed promoter, Bill Graham. Nearly all of Bill Graham’s family perished at the hands of the Nazis and Bill was sent overseas to grow up in foster homes in NYC. Before he became the famous super-promoter, Graham worked in the upstate resorts of the New York Catskills as a waiter where he met a relative of mine. Becoming fast friends, they made an Easy Rider cross-country motorcycle trip one summer. For many years, I wore Bill’s black leather jacket worn from that ride, which was passed on to me as a whiff of his visionary spirit, that which brought Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Alan Ginsburg, Santana, Rolling Stones, Eddie Money and Phil Collins to the world’s stage and began what became Live Aid.

Bill Taught Me: ”Get up Early.” Many of Bill’s “wins” came simply because he got there first. I get up at 5 am, precisely because of Bill.

Malik Quote: “Yes, Wear it.” I recall having a suit on for an interview and vacillating between wearing a very notable coat on top or not, was it too much? Malik emphatically pointed out that wearing the coat is exactly what would seal the deal.

I Love you: I love you both for being loud, charming, visionary and bull-headed and coloring my world with music and style.

Thank you: Malik, you were the worst and the best boyfriend ever. Mostly the worst, but thank you for that.

Style Tips: Life goes better and bigger with a Bit of Bold.

The Exalted Red Queens:

Kirin Mishra, Diana Vreeland and Michelle Obama.

In Looking Glass Land, the Queen tells Alice, “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”

You taught Me: Kirin Misha. For just about one minute when I first saw you, your sexy, suburban Mom status nicely hid your intense and deep knowledge passed down in the Kashmir Shree Vidya Tantric tradition. I watched your destined transition from the Mrs. to the Mysterious, with your taking of new name, Parvathi Nanda Nath Saraswati, and teaching around the world. You inspired me to rocket-launch from my solar house co-habitation in a backwoods country clearing to clearly hearing the universe shout to me: “Get Thee back to NYC.” Your giggle combined with knowledge (such that The Lovers, Sharon and David said within one minute of meeting you that they had nothing to teach you.) All this kept me pinned, keeping to my “same place” meditation cushion while the antics of a country yoga community ran past — the laughing yogis, the stawkers in saris, a memorable elder yogi’s karaoke to Madonna’s “Ray of Light” and even ten tons of sticky watermelon juice all over your kitchen at the insistance of a juice-dieting kirtan background singer when we hosted the groupies of the suddenly touring Krishna Das band we found hidden at that Ananda Ashram. I miss you, it was grandly fun.

and…by the way, be gone the Guru bashings and gossip. Divas exist everywhere in many forms, in stories, myths, movies, books even Ashrams, balking at kitchen duty serving the hummus. If you cannot laugh at it all then you are taking it too seriously. I was there. I know real teachings, we all live them, the particulars are not important, the Truth of Love is.

As Chogyam Trungpa once said, “The most powerful mantra? …Om, Grow Up Svaha.”

I love you, Diana Vreeland. A beacon Red Queen issuing proclamations and demanding beauty. She was My Poster Girl. The pic of her in her red floral drawing room sat fiercely in place among the cultural train and running mix of posters of the moment in my bedroom… the navy Krishna in a sea of hot pink, the Joe Eula and Antonio’s illustrations of YSL from W magazine. And yes, I admit Farrah Fawcett preceeded her and the classic “Saturday Night Fever” poster with Tony in his white 3-piece hung nearby, both of which I think Diana might have liked.

Thank you, Michelle Obama for being a smart, full of heart, elegant and intelligent Woman in Love with and loved by her equally powerful Man. Now that my friends, is a queen. She chose McQueen, Alexander McQueen, for the red history-making dress to honor President Hu Jintao of China and for all its symbolic and international fashion waves. Mrs. O, the blog following her every sweater set, media and fashion pundits weighed in on the choice from all angles. Cathy Horyn and Robin Givhan voted yes, Oscar de la Renta, WWD‘s Bridget Foley, Oscar de la Renta and the CFDA voted no. New York Magazine‘s Amy Odell called it “Michelle Obama’s McQueengate Slogs On.” Maybe she just wore it because she liked it admired McQueen, who died recently. His talent was global and spoke to all of humanity and I personally think she is that tapped in to wear it for that reason and message alone.

You Taught Me: Red Queens, you are often misunderstood but I hardly think you care.

I Love you Michelle O: for your $200. Alice Waters organic garden and your borrowed (we hope) McQueen.

Thank you: for strength beyond beauty, scorn, jealousy, fear and simple minds.

Diana Quote: “The only real elegance is in the mind; if you’ve got that, the rest really comes from it.”

Style Tips: Color Therapy is not just for graduates of Mary Kay cosmetics sales training. Red will always be the happy elephant in the room, conveying the color of Life, energy, authority, power and a second chakra properly juiced up upon its wearer.

The Wise and Simple Kings:

Mr. Munyan, Isaiah Zagar and Baba Neem Karoli.

You Really Taught me, Mr. Munyan. You look like a Frog, everyone agrees. I have never met a more engaging frog or man in my Life. Munyan was our 8th grade Social Studies teacher, leaping around the class, making jokes, asking serious questions, gesturing wildly and taking everyone on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. From the seed of an idea like: let’s all actually wear tunics and wimples and make a real Medieval marketplace to let’s actually re-enact the entire trial of Lt. Calley and the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, I aimed higher because of the Frog and remember major smiles even through my teenage angst. A posse of about 5 boys and I used to hang at his house, he was the coolest and most creative ever and I’m thrilled to know he eventually became Principal.

King Isaiah’s Magic Gardens on South Street in Philadelphia is haven of mosaic happiness that has been spreading through the neighborhood since the late 1960s, when a gentle man moved to the area with his wife Julia to open a folk art store, the Eyes Gallery at 402 South Street. I met Isaiah when we did a fashion shoot on his roof and his joy was contagious. Like many naive artists he just started one day and has not stopped since.

I love you, Baba. One day deep in the library shelves, age 12, the proverbial book fell off the library shelf onto my head. The “Twilight” series wasn’t invented just yet, my teenish desires and dreams were already actually attuned to Indian mystics, or rather they conked me on the head for said attuning. Ram Dass’s “Be Here Now,” the blue book detailing his visits to Baba Neem Karoli, the famous guru in India, was suddenly in my hands and I stared and stared at the image of the blue Guru. Years later in California, I stood by Ram Das’s side on a boat trip and many times sat beside Krishna Das, the kirtan singer, both whom sat by the Great Guru’s side and there have been plenty of miracles in my life connected to this Guru. The Joy is there beyond words.

Kings!…

You Taught Me: Improbable questions are answered by trust.

I Love you my Kings: Your wise kingdoms of silly deep love feel so gooood.

Thank you: For giving your All.

Often Quoted about Baba: “He is a wonderful teacher, and will play with you if you get to know him.”

Style Tips: Wrap Thy Self in wildly colored mosaics, Play or plaid Slankets, for a humble womb of instant enlightenment.

The White Rabbit Mystic at The Gate with The Rock:

Peggy Guggenheim, Gene London and Tina Fey.

The White Rabbit is a nerd who confuses time, faces and places and just like The Mystic, injects fantasy, fun, obscure facts and ridiculous behavior into “Reality.” On top of it, the scurrying rabbit repeatedly and annoyingly knocks at the Gate to be let in.

You taught me, Gene. When I was little, Gene London was my first tall, dark and handsome geeky, gangly man-crush. He was my favorite, ecstatic story-telling camp counselour who went on to host his own local Saturday morning kids’ TV show, “The Gene London Show.” He played himself, a dreamy, artistic shopkeeper who would make a sketch and stop time, inviting wide-eyed Brownie and Boy Scout troops into worlds of romance and fantasy, most often morphing into a Disney movie and endless repeats of “The Wizard of Oz.” Gene was a very real and simple Enchanter empowering the everyday with story. Thank you also, for perhaps being one of the first “wildly creative homosexuals” I encountered as a kid. Thankfully, now many knock at my Gate. Come in, Come in!

At age 21 I came upon the iron gate holding colored stones at Peggy Guggenheim‘s Venice Palace designed by Clare Falkenstein and was enchanted for life by this gate, to me symbolizing the gems within the web of life. Guggenheim attained instant Guru Goddess status with me. You have a horseback rider with an erection in the center of your Courtyard? You got all the gondola gigolos to do your bidding? At 21, you inherited 21 million and exhibited and collected the art of your major artist friends and lovers? A list which included Jean Cocteau, Marcel Duchamp, Yves Tanguy,Constantin Brancusi,Man Ray,Antoine Pevsner, Henry Moore, Henri Laurens, Alexander Calder, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Constantin Brancusi, Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, George Braque,Wassily Kandinsky and Kurt Schwitters? A collector of men, art and a bequeather to the history of modern art, yep, you taught me. I am the nerd with love in my eyes at your Gate.

Tina Fey as Liz Lemon is an effulgent fountain of Nerd Heaven relentlessly slamming into the Gate of Reason. Everyone knows my big nerd secret that I do not ever, ever watch TV, the neat, big 3 exceptions being red carpet Award shows, Obama speeches and Tina in “30 Rock.”

You All Taught Me: To Elevate The Nerd, Listen to it and act upon it.

I Love you: for steering your own gondolas, general stores, genius-yes’s of Love  and genitalias. (forgive all annoying alliterations, so nerdy;-)

Thank you: (what? was not the above enough?)

Quote: “I am constantly amazed by Tina Fey. And I am Tina Fey.”

Style Tips: Every nerd and white rabbit likes props, bold sunglasses, monocles, pooches and men as accessories. Gene had an apron like Erkel had his overalls.  Tina has those glasses and that one pair of “Brooklyn Without Limits” green jeans…

The Peaceful Warrior is Called To The Mission:

Leslie Holzman, Bob Geldof, Alice in Wonderland and Elena Brower.

Leslie Holzman was one of the first women bike messengers in New York City, a top clothing designer, a fierce Vegan, a roommate of Debbie Harry, my best friend and one very magical person. When we met, she lived in a huge house on the Delaware River with 20 dogs, 15 white geese, mind-boggling and beautiful collections of rare medals, art books, antiques, jewels, boxes, notes and husband Benji, a feisty Sean Penn look-alike, Jewish auto mechanic from Las Vegas who specialized in Mercedes and hilarious fake porn phone messages. Like a child to ward off the finality of death, he kept the ashes of all the dogs from all his life in a huge field, a kind of Mercedes/Dead Dog Homage Museum, with black tank 1950′s specimens to slick white Gere era, Gigolo styles in all stages of sculptural decline or post-modern assemblage. (just the cars, the dogs were thankfully all in ash state.) Leslie would drive her Mercedes of the day at only 5-10 miles per hour, even on the highway for fear of hitting an animal or insect. She was an outspoken peaceful warrior for animals and the sacredness of all life with an infectious, dirty joke kind of laugh that literally lit up a room. Although caring and sensitive, she proudly proclaimed that she never cried. Never. I sat with her the day before she died, as she cried, letting go peacefully and finally.

Prior to being a Nobel Peace prize nominee, in 1984, Bob Geldof of The Boomtown Rats was surrounded by a series of flop hits when he was stunned by television images of starving Africans. He described it as “sitting in my comfortable living room surrounded by the fripperies of modern living which we were pleased to regard as necessities. Their eyes looked into mine.”  From that moment, his life took a radical turn. When Bob first suggested doing a record to his musician friends to raise money, immediately a friend asked for his help to get clearance for a supply delivery truck in Africa, as if the two activities had never been aligned in the Universe except for Bob, for Africa, for the world in that moment. His peaceful war on starvation created Band Aid and Live Aid changed forever the face of philanthropy.

It’s kind of a little something, something when your favorite yoga teacher, maybe ever, is called to teach 10,000 people on The Great Lawn of Central Park. Elena Brower is not trying to be a Yoga Teacher and that is what landed her on that stage. The fact that the event was rained out 15 minutes in is even better yoga.

I Love you: For your Love Trains, happy to be on them.

You Taught Me: Surround me with your Love.

Thank you, Bob: For your Scrappy, Resourceful, Very Large Vision.

Leslie’s Quote: (depending upon the day) “Buy, Sell, Trade.” …or… “Nothing at All.”

Style Tips: This is not a chapter in the Color Me Beautiful book, just my own observations: Purple and orange are high-vibration spiritual colors, but are also classic leaders of severe style mistakes unless in the hands of couture. Bob dressed like a tacky 80′s sorta-punk, Boomtown Rat and Leslie went overboard, but who cares when you are this close to Emerald City?

“You Taught me, I Love you, Thank you.”

Taught reminds me of the word taut. Like a tightrope, all relationships are yoga, the word which means “yoke.” To be tethered to something or someone is to be tamed, as The Little Prince’s fox taught us. We choose to be taunted or to be taught. I thank and love my teachers, the fascinating and the horrid ones. You, and you and you and you reading, thank you because the Matrix of Love has us tethered, it cannot be denied and I am happy to romp with you. (ya hearing that kooky music now?)

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Who Do You Love?

IMAGE and otherwise CREDITS:

Thanks to Marilyn Minter, David LaChapelle and of course, my Mom, as the biggest fan of this blog and a big character in my life, yes, Mom, to you too. Thank you, you taught me and I love you!