Strangers on a Train.

Lynn Yaeger, via The Sartorialist

North by Northwest

Teepee and I spotted Lynn Yaeger on the Long Island Railroad last week. I'd like to say that Teepee recognized the fashion reporter for The Village Voice, Vogue, and T: The New York Times Style Magazine, but really she's too little to be interested in reading magazines- her focus is more on gnawing on them. Anyhow, I like to imagine that Ms. Yaeger was attending a cocktail hour at a Gold Coast estate, a la North by Northwest, without the kidnapping subplot, of course, but with a gorgeous icy Hitchcock femme to save the day. Ms. Yaeger has this to say about her perfect day:

My perfect day still begins with me staring up at what is one of the most breathtaking sights in the retail pantheon—the ceiling of the main floor of Bergdorf Goodman. The uniformed doormen may be gone, the penthouse apartment the Goodman family inhabited long replaced by a beauty parlor, but that ivory and pink plaster wedding-cake ceiling is every bit as resplendent as it was in 1928, the year, smack between two world wars, when Bergdorf's opened. Since it's my perfect day, I'm wearing something splendid yet raffish, something that could have cost $10 or $1000 and that gives me the air of a faded Italian movie star.

AMEN, SISTER.

Old out tonight, or I love a good neurotic.

The last time I was at the other-wordly Beacon Theatre was to see PJ Harvey perform from White Chalk, in a show that rang with a fierce Victorian vaudeville jangle. She was gorgeous. That night there was a little typo with the signage in front of the theatre which seems apropos for Shine A Light, Scorsese's new Rolling Stones concert film filmed at the Beacon, opening this weekend. It's been nearly two years since KP and I watched Neil Young: Heart of Gold and I do believe it is a high time for another visit with of legendary figures in iconic spaces in the flickering dark of a downtown Manhattan cinema house.

Shine a Light trailer

In the deepest ocean/The bottom of the sea

I have a birthday coming up and I wouldn't say no to the gift of these crazy framed Japanese pearl displays from the 1930s. They chart the maturity of oysters in months and years which is very, very informative considering all the deep sea diving I do.

I've always wanted a feather headress from Cameroon.

All sorts of gorgeous uselessness to dream about from Ruzzeti and Gow. Except that peacock, which is terribly useful if you're a vagabond stationer.

These are a few of my favorite things.

"I'll let you be in my dreams, if I can be in yours,"
I said that.

A lazy Sunday with Teepee yielded this fruit, an ode to...

Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness!

Earl Greyhound!

Natasha Khan

Kazu Makino

Look! It's Earl Greyhound in the New York Times Magazine! Look! Kamara's wearing her own pants and a blouse by Balmain and Matt's rocking pom-poms! They're featured alongside such luminaries as a Lennon, a Hammerstein, Kazu Makino of Blonde Redhead, and Natasha Khan aka Bat for Lashes aka Radiohead's opening act. Natasha proudly wears a chain ring from Catbird in real life (I have several, myself) and soon enough Jezebel will be for sale at Bonbi Forest, home of all Bat for Lashes paraphernalia. Oh, I can't wait to have the Jezebel/Kamara collaboration in hand to show you!

Good and golden.

from Ant Ventures by Elizabeth Blanche Wade, 1924

I'm cooking up a new collection of Jezebel wearables. I am very excited and hope to see you all dripping in it very soon.

Sweetness and light, with a mighty bite.

This gorgeous new old photo from the Found Gallery makes me want to delve deep into the  Southern Gothic.

I'd like to live at Gipsy House.

a page from The Man with Dancing Eyes by Sophie Dahl, allegedly about her romance with Mick Jagger

a 1925 photo of the grand-pere of S. Dahl, otherwise known as Roald Dahl

a still from Breakfast at Tiffany's starring the grand-mere of S. Dahl, Patricia Neal

The spring/summer issue of Vogue Living opens with an article by fellow bibliophile, Sophie Dahl, reflecting on her childhood memories of her grandparents' tumbling cottage in the English countryside, Gipsy House, ripe with late 1970s halycon days and potent sadness to fuel my mania for Anglo-childhoods.

And she will learn to play the most miniature sitar to lull the little ladies to nod.

teepee shot from Toast, via A Cup of Jo

While this is a little rough for our style, I like to imagine a tea party with Teepee, Coral, and my favorite two-legged little misses. Shirley Temples for them, something more potent for me.

An American abroad, aloft on a blue crushed velvet lounger.

Though I could generally do without Brocade Home and their overwrought ways, there's something about this chair that appeals to me. I'd like to lounge upon it, poolside, in a cool English or Italian early fall, with a slight wind blowing, and a general air of lackadaisical laziness prevailing. Bernardo Bertolucci, at nearly 29, I am still in the throes of your Stealing Beauty.

Before Bjork, there was Brigitte.

This is crazy. Crazy.

Welcome to the Dollhouse, Teepee.

a plate from John Derian that I do not own

a puppy that I do!

Please meet Teepee. I just brought her home. We are both a little nervous.

Make new friends but keep the old/silver and gold.

I had dinner with Erica Weiner, Jewelry Designer (a phrase that deserves capitals when speaking of E.W.) and old friend of my favorite alliteratively titled band, Basement Band, on Friday night. I'd been thinking about making a small purchase and she helped me to throw caution to the wind. I'll have further details on said purchase Tomorrow (a word that deserves capitals when speaking of my purchase.)

Guess who I wish was coming to dinner.

Unlike coffee, olives, and Virginia Woolf, and like Joni Mitchell, Katharine Hepburn was an acquired taste for me. Once acquired, the need, like the need for coffee, has become rather insatiable. It began a number of years ago, as I was about to embark on an academic career at Hepburn's alma mater, Bryn Mawr College. I left Bryn Mawr after a year, but the lady stays with me.

Heaven, won't you be my neighbor?

from The Sartorialist

jewels created by the man above, Heaven Tanudiredja,
for Dries Van Noten, images from style.com

Shadows.

I finally made it through Shadows the other night and now I want to slip into all of Lelia Goldoni's dresses. I'd always been put off by the raucous opening scene, but once I made it past there, it was all smooth sailing on the trills of Charles Mingus' soundtrack.

Milwaukee, Algonquin for "the good land."

Alice Cooper from style.com

Anyone who has watched a certain little film from 1992 as much as I have is bound to appreciate this unexpected little gem.

Ne´e Lula.

Issue no. 6 is here and is resting quietly in the dollhouse until Rachel and I can properly celebrate and venerate her this weekend. In the meanwhile, I just read that Carson McCullers was born Lula Carson Smith. By the age 13, year 1930, she had abandoned the Lula in favor of the androgynous Carson. Rather amusing - today's Lula is about as femme as it gets.

It took a long time for me to find her.

the circle game, from joni mitchell: woman of heart and mind


joni mitchell, david crosby, eric clapton in mama cass's backyard, 1968

When I was in fourth grade, my favorite teacher ever, used to play us "The Circle Game" on her guitar. For the holidays she gave everyone in the class a tape of her playing that song, amongst others, which, rather tellingly, I do not remember. It took me until last year to come to Joni Mitchell, and it happened through watching the extraordinary Woman of Heart and Mind. I went from calling her "Skeletor" after watching The Last Waltz, and not understanding what the fuss was about "Woodstock" (admittedly, still not one of my favorite songs) to being totally enamoured. Me and the rest of the world, and Laurel Canyon, too. It's pretty difficult to watch it and not want to know her, and I do mean know her. I should find that tape. And then a tape recorder to listen to it on.

update: Joni Mitchell began writing "The Circle Game" as a response to her friend Neil Young's "Sugar Mountain,"  according to "The Real Angels" in Vanity Fair. 

Fleet summer feet, for one of these mornings I hope to rise up singing.

perfect sandals from urban outfitters

big brother & the holding company and janis joplin,
summertime recording session, 1968

I couldn't sleep last night. I opened the window behind my bed and dug deep unders the covers and felt the cold air rush over me and remembered how close I am to an ocean. Having the window open on an late winter early morning made my warm bed an island, an ada as they call it in Turkish. I could never live landlocked. Summertime feels very far away right now, but time has told me that I will joyously sip Bloody Mary's again.

My castle, my books.

Tsar Nicholas II with Marie, Tatiana, Olga, Alexandra, and Alexei

It's been a restless few weeks, flitting from book to book, since I left Pattie Boyd behind. I've settled contentedly into a $1 cart rescue of the out of print One Man in His Time: The Memoirs of Serge Obolensky. It's only been a few pages but I can already tell that owning this autographed edition would be a sacred relic of a world past. It's also a relief for my thirsty eyes that the new issue of Vanity Fair arrived today. I will parcel out such delicious morsels as "A Claim to Camelot," about the possibility of an illegitimate male heir of J.F.K. (to which I say, only one illegtitmate heir?!) and "The Real Angels," an article on Carole King, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell being visited by muses in the guise of Leonard Cohen, Cat Stevens, Graham Nash, et al.

Vivre sa vie.

Anna Karina in My Life to Live (Vivre Sa Vie), 1962

This stationer has been having a rough time of it lately. By way of consolation and distraction I have been watching loads of films. On tap tonight is Jean Luc Godard's Le Petit Soldat. There is a captivating video of Godard and Karina floating around, totally mutually captivated with one another, that I will share with you when I'm better equipped for such.

(Undressed) like mother, like daughter.

daughter, lou doillon

mother, jane birkin

jane and lou, mother and daughter

This rambling article from Lou Doillon is so wonderful and charming, even with all the flourishes of fame and fortune. For the record, as a child at temple, I used to dream about piling all the fur coats in the coat-room into a heap in the corner on the floor, to nap nestled in the warmth and perfumery.

As a child, I loved dressing up. I didn't know the Jane Birkin of the Seventies, when she was doing Playboy and going out every night. I was raised by a mother who was only doing humanitarian causes. I come from a crazy aristocratic family. There was something of a P.G. Wodehouse madness about it - wearing top hats to have tea. It was Alice in Wonderland and J.M. Barrie put together.

I was raised in a room that was black, with an old four-poster bed and a sink from the Orient Express. It was a big house hidden behind four enormous doors. I was surrounded by curios - a little shoe of Marie Antoinette's that Serge Gainsbourg gave my mother, old pianos, stuffed animals. My crazy uncle talked about chaos theory until 4am. I was the classic daughter of a star. I remember sounds, people screaming, being hidden under my mother's fur coats. In all the pictures you can see my little feet poking out from underneath. It's the sound of fame that I remember. Ever since childhood I have been paranoid about being the daughter of someone famous.The only way to do battle with that is to work my a*** off so I can confront people.

With Lee Cooper I am designing everything from the start. They said, “You don't have to do it, we can do it for you” - but I said no, I want to learn. It's my name written in those trousers, I want to be proud of it. I can't let someone else do it. I can't say I don't want fame. I take great pleasure in being seen. It's a thrill when you're in one of those families where everyone is recognised. I don't want to live the life of a star, but I'm constantly taking the Tube and the bus and being spotted - I guess I enjoy it, though, or I'd be hiding in black cars with tinted windows instead.

English and French style differs in its humour. In England you laugh at yourselves, in France we laugh at others. That's what you find in fashion, too. In France there is a wonderful elegance: on the Metro, in any railway carriage, there is more style than in any other country in the world. French girls know themselves; they don't follow trends. Girls like me who have no boobs have always dressed like boys, wearing open tuxedos with nothing underneath.It's wonderfully classy and elegant but, at the same time, there's a lack of humour.

I'm p***ed off that we have a President who is wearing Prada. I was always glad to know that the President wasn't looking at himself in the mirror in the morning. People are mocking Sarkozy because he is with Carla Bruni. I have no problem with this girl, and it's not because he's with her that suddenly I don't like the bloke. I just find it appalling that everyone supported him when he was making very wrong moves. Now, just because he's married to her, everyone hates him. There are much more interesting reasons for hating him than her. In London I feel more confident. My son and I start the day in Paris dancing to rock'n' roll music - we have top hats, and beads in our hair - but we put on our casual clothes to go out. In London we wouldn't change. When you're famous in France and wearing top hats at 9am, they don't like you. The French prefer you to be subtle. I love going to New York. No one cares there. I go to Starbucks in an enormous hat, dressed up as a boy, with a fake moustache. Everyone says: “What a lovely moustache.”

And everywhere there was song and celebration

bob with anna and sam, woodstock, 1970

My friends have been doing so good lately and I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such a crew. KP is up in Woodstock making a record with Monuments, there's a new little baby Catbird in town, Amal and Kamara sung back up for Shooter Jennings on Conan O'Brien on Friday, Tom's being represented by a commercial production company, Liz has been making more star paintings, Rachel's designing women's knits for DKNY, Andrew's Cutman, a musical about a Jewish boxer that my Uncle Bernie would've just loved, is being developed into a full scale production, my refined and lovely Cape May-mates are cavorting, collegiate style in European capitals, and Peter is introducing a line of modern, fresh Vietnamese food to grocers near you.

It's really such an embarrassment of riches. I can't help but brag. Add to the mix the achievements of such imaginary friends as Oscar winner Marion Cotillard and the Mitford sisters, subjects of yet another book, and I really do feel like quite the social butterfly. All right, that last statement was a big lie. Truly, I'm deeply beset by cabin fever and am desperate for spring. Desperate. The only consolation I have this time of year, is that I feel very comfortable wearing a uniform of vintage slips and natty sweaters with a clip on mink collar while I work at home. Sadly, though, not an appropriate ensemble for the days that this vagabond stationer is lured from her lair. While waiting, I'll be reading The Annotated Secret Garden,

burning Lemon Sake candles by Voluspa, and drinking Greyhounds.