Eau de Toilet.

For my 13th birthday, my equal parts glamorous and disheveled grandmother gave me a bottle of Miss Dior, which was the ne plus ultra in non-suburban life to me.  Reading Francine du Plessix Gray's profile of Dior in the New Yorker, I learned "He was born in 1905 in Granville, Normandy, the son of a prominent fertilizer magnate.  ('It smells of Dior today,' townsfolk would remark.)"

Domino, April 2005-January 2009.

what Rita Konig said about Jezebel

Dear Domino, one of my favorite magazines and a treasured supporter of Jezebel, is no more.  

The mauve room

Before penning a sweet little story called Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte decorated this dollhouse. The George II "baby house" is up for auction at Christie's, as part of the collection of antiques dealer Roger Warner, a favorite source for some folks like, oh, Walt Disney, the Mitford sisters, and a queen or two.

Flora, Fauna, and Merriweather Moving, Inc.

Paul: Well, this is a nice little place you've got here. You just moved in, too, huh?
Holly: No. I've been here about a year.

In an effort to avoid the above sort of exchange, 93 pairs of hands have about 4 hours to move the First Family into the White House. I feel certain that it really happens something like this:

update: I got totally sucked into watching Sleeping Beauty on YouTube. I worked an overnight last night, so I feel like I deserve it. Plus, Teepee hasn't been this engaged in a movie since Basquiat.

In flight, alight

This morning, Michelle Obama wore a dress by Isabel Toledo. A few years ago, I had the deep honor of sitting with Rachel and listening to Isabel and her husband Ruben talk with equal parts humor, grace, and irreverence about the process of creating. The magic carpet that they sail on, fueled by deep, pacific love and admiration was palpable and led me to crown them, along with Rachel Feinstein and John Currin: caped crusaders, modern day champions of old-fashioned, elusive matrimonial bliss. For more thoughts on creativity, watch the joyous Sonia Rykiel in the above video, by the Toledos.

A humble hail to the chief

To read: Moby Dick, The Golden Notebook, Invisible Man, poetry of Derek Walcott, Gilead- selected favorites of President Obama, virgin lands to me.

That Shining Tree of Life

INAUGURATION DAY 2009
push blooms push

Andrew Wyeth. July 12, 1917-Jan 16, 2009.

The Lovers, 1981.

Kittens called Twiglet and Fellini, and pots of flower soup

Any imagination brimming with equal parts New York nostalgia, mania for English eccentrics and aesthetes, learned, revolutionary ideals, and well-named kittens lounging in nooks both moorish and rock and roll, is of a superior and desirable appointment, in the particular estimation of this vagabond stationer. Acquaint yourself with A Bloomsbury Life (located literally "within spitting distance of Hollywood and Vine" and metaphysically somewhere between Brideshead and Sissinghurst Castle) for more divining.

Ode to a small thing (not Teepee)

Curved needles are so helpful.  I repaired my tattered-beyond-presentable vintage fur coat and beloved black cashmere pop-top gloves with the assistance of one of these friends yesterday.  So satisfying.  

The Recently Deflowered Girl: The Right Thing to Say on Every Dubious Occasion

My dear Mr. Gorey kept things slender but wicked with this out of print volume, published under his nom de plume, Hyacinthe Phypps. Click here to read the shocking tales of his soiled sylphs. (via bookslut)

My castle, my books.

Indulging in another bit of Charles Higham frippery: Princess Merle, The Romantic Life of Merle Oberon. I was lured in by the truth behind the studio machine's assertion that Merle was a Tasmanian aristocrat.  Truth: she was born impoverished, to an Indian mother and an Anglo father in a crowded, public Bombay hospital and spent the rest of her life fiercely, assiduously whitening her skin and erasing her past.

Ladies Only

Coral, feline, 10lbs

Teepee, canine, 5 lbs

Coral is coming to stay with us for the week.  Teepee has been quivering with anticipation-Coral, too.  Though, as we like to say, Coral is Teepee's best friend, though not entirely so the other way around.  

Chilled white wine and plates of pickles, down on Orchard Street

Repetitive viewings at an early age taught me all I needed to know about kerchiefs and convents, handsome widowers, the humble, and the very grand. Last night, Shirah and I dined like Von Trapps at Cafe Katja.

Happy Birthday!

Teepee turned 1 today. Clearly, she's very excited. Such a big little girl.

Decay of the highest order

Eliza Jane Curtis' Buenos Aires dining room via design*sponge

garden at Aurora

I have lower North Side fantasies. Morris and Essex produces beautiful stationery (stocked at Catbird) and creator Eliza Jane Morris is lucky enough to dine in a beautiful glass-roofed room in Buenos Aires, which reminds me of Aurora. Brunching at Aurora is so very smart, and always calls for a visit to Main Drag, Modest Designs, and Moon River Chattel.

My castle, my books.

I've arrived at Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet a little later than most, though given my goals for 2009, the timing feels impeccable.

Belated tidings.

Akron Civic, Ohio, 1980- Hiroshi Sugimoto

A year of Action.

I like to think of my books as in your possession. -Rilke