PARIS + SWAN
Annakim Violette

Seeing clearly

Ingmar Bergman's personal effects were auctioned off in Sweden on Sunday. It's a ghostly thing to flick through, the catalog of plain and sturdy tables, velveteen armchairs, portraits, goblets for beer, the remnants of Faro, records, awards and medals.

Exception, my black beauties

Monica Vitti photograph, photographed by Garance Dore,
in the VIP lounge at Dolce & Gabbana

Time Machine (addendum to 17, vines)

lou and cleo, under the rooftops of paris, $3.50 at www.ilovejezebel.com

17, vines

the selby in paris + production model of Picasso's Paris apartment frm Surviving Picasso, up for auction at Christie's (auction discovered via an aesthete's lament)

I bought a not-quite, though almost perfect ivory sequin dress on Saturday, and promptly hacked the sleeves off and doctored the back into something slightly more modern, I think. It was intended to be worn to Rachel's birthday, but I lack the proper massive black shoes to ground down the goddess dress to terra firma. Once I find the proper massive black shoes the dress will be worn, and I will be one step closer to clacking my heels along the streets of Paris, where I have spent only one day. Oh, do you hear the swells of an orchestra of liliputian violins? Only one day in Paris, she said! Too horrible to even speak outloud. Poor, poor Jezebel.

Dearest, darling stockists: Fitzgerald Coleman

Another Jezebel order is barreling uptown to the waiting arms of Fitzgerald Coleman, an absolutely impeccable online stationery retailer. Jezebel is too pleased to be in the company of old stationer friends, Pancake & Franks, Red Cap Cards, and Sesame Letterpress, as well as personal favorites like Austin Press & John Derian.

I've got a bat in my name, vol. II

luxirare in red hook+ cuff frm bona drag

Envy in the morning light, envy in the dark of night

I'm writing this last night, because I've been thinking about it often today. My nose is stuffed, and my ears are clogged (charming, no?) so I've retreated to an inner world of jadeite elves and nymphs and boulevardiers. I might lose a fake eyelash batting my lids furiously, hoping some unknown force spirits a bottle of no. 407 my way.

What are you doing?

Two expatriates in Madagascar employed thousands of cannibalistic female spiders to produce an 11 foot spider-silk cloth, now on view at the Museum of Natural History. After many fits and starts, the two men put together an almost Victorian spider-silk harvesting operation that hired local people to comb the countryside with long bamboo poles, carefully collecting live female spiders — about 3,000 a day — in boxes. The spiders were taken to Mr. Godley, who set up a system in which workers, all women, would handle each spider, gently pulling out the thread that dangled from its spinnerets. (The spiders bite if provoked, but their bites are not dangerous.) The spider would then be placed in a harness, with 23 others, and sit more or less patiently as a spool tugged the rest of its web out in continuous threads that could sometimes stretch as long as 400 yards before the spider had given its all.

Someone must buy the rights to this story right away, and turn it into a small masterpiece.

On the subject of small masterpieces, Charlotte's Web, taught me sacrifice and reverence for animals, along with a taste and respect for the beauty of the bittersweet.

I slept through the hail of darts and arrows

Boudicca in London

Belle du Jour

Looks like Jezebel's old pals, Fred Flare, have a new pal of their own. Charlie, I think I love you.

"Sometimes I chide the manner of your dress/ I want all men to see the grace of you"

20th century David Hamilton photograph + 19th century Sir David Hamilton engraving

D.H.
D.H.
D.H.
H.D.

I'm late. I know it.

I am so very happy to be home, and while Sarah's recipe is simmering, I return to a recurring obsession. Jean Painleve, Poseidon's Steed's shall remind me that real seahorses, I do not need.

Teepee and Coral, you must learn to share.

Only one of these pillows is staying. This might present a problem.

A roundabout ramble down the road, destination: We Love You So

panthera knob, $8, anthropologie

Found these sweet drawer pulls that I love so, but cannot justify $8 per, when a total of 8 is needed, for a dresser that might not stay with us. So I went looking for Pierre, and other lions, and found myself at We Love You So, the official blog for Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are. You should spend time there, and I should redesign (or rather, design) my blog.

Jezebel giveaway vol. 1: She who is chosen

feather trapeze earrings, $495, Bittersweets

Random.org has worked it's dark magic and chosen CAROLINE as the recipient of the Bittersweets letter ring! One hitch: Caroline, where are you?! Please email me by Wednesday, September 23rd at jezebel@ilovejezebel.com, to claim your golden prize. If dear Caroline has departed to take the cure at Baden-Baden or is sojourning at Jules' Undersea Hotel, I will announce bearer #2, also picked by random.org, on Thursday.

Please do remember that Bittersweets letter rings make delightful gifts for friends, new babies, lovers, oneself! Come see, feel, try Bittersweets at Catbird. Oh, and since I know you all are bursting with vague, unmet jewelry desires, flickering in dreams, yet to be realized, Robin is a custom virtuoso.

An open declaration of love and devotion

Garbo in Mata Hari

Turner Classic Movies,

As I will be spending the weekend in a land with cable, I've referenced your schedule. Today's offerings include Mata Hari, Grand Hotel, an impossible to find Swedish documentary on Greta Garbo, Devotion, an hour with Bill Murray and Elvis Mitchell, A Thousand Clowns, and all those delicious inter-programming bits, like Elizabeth Taylor on her lost friend, Montgomery Clift. You, TCM, have been such a good and dear friend, and have taught me so much. I forgive you for those all-Western days; we probably needed a break from each other, anyway. I dream (in black & white) about a time when we can see each other daily. Until then, I remain, yours devoted.

Jezebel

Sweet, New to you and you

study of apples

L'shanah Tovah

Mary Travers, Nov. 9, 1936 - Sept. 16, 2009.

image chosen for my mother

I grew up on Peter, Paul, and Mary.
A favorite moment from No Direction Home: a bitter day in Washington Square, and John Cohen asks Mary, who's just returned from Florida, why she is so pale. Answer: "Albert (Grossman) wants me to be the pale, blonde, indoor type."

Wants: nude and purpose

silk chiffon dress, $436 frm pixie market + bedroom frm vogue living australia via pia

I've been getting in my own way, literally and proverbially tripping over my own recently resurrected pointy-toed heels; I am beginning to irritate myself. To extrapolate in a direction both aesthetic and appropriate for this medium, I rediscovered this apartment, which inspired me months ago to take some action. I continue to love the ease, the palette, the drama, but I love more it's open embrace of layers, clutter, tatters, and a sense that it was done impromptu and insistently with what they already possessed. Wondering if I can conjure similar ease, palette, drama after work tonight. Oh, Jezebel. Get it together before you really piss Jezebel off.

Once more: Pith and Ore

hand in hand the bat and the owl disappeared into the wood between the worlds, $3.50 at www.ilovejezebel.com
+
jeanne moreau in the bride wore black

In lieu of in situ, an ocelot

Mrs Si Merrill's pet ocelot, 1961

Coral and Teepee are in love with the new flokati rug - I suspect they suspect it might be a new family member of some kind.

stash

Ikea 365+ bowl, $2.99- chic and cheap

Working from home has to mean complete refusal to leave the home during working hours, lest you get sucked into neighborhood gallivanting and wildly justified dilly-dallying. The challenge to stay put increases as cupboard's bounty decreases. I just rehydrated some shitake mushrooms, simmered with the last clove of garlic and canned tomatoes, then served atop polenta and parmesan in one of my new bowls. I'm pretty proud.

L.B. + B.O.R.

snake necklaces with pink diamonds, British, 1900s, price upon request

Dear L.B.,

I picked this out, in case you wanted a pink diamond bauble to match your new pink diamond bauble. And, will it be in Saugerties? I have become quite taken with pastoral affairs and their divine sartorial opportunities. Too excited, for wherever we shall toast you shall be grand.

With bells,
L.B.

Ode to a small thing (not Teepee) vol. 4

After brunch and a visit to the P.S. 321 flea market, we braved Ikea. I secretly wanted to derail the mission and have brunch no. 2 at the soccer fields and then swing by Saipua and Erie Basin, but silent I stayed, and Ikea we did brave. Top of the list was this dish rack. While not particularly picturesque, it function makes me think it quite beautiful. Without any counter space in my kitchen, like most Brooklyn kitchens save the one we dined at last night, the space next to the sink is too sacred to waste on drying dishes.

Bittersweets letter ring: Jezebel GIVEAWAY vol. 1!

Get thee to the comments section, quick! Dear Robin, of Bittersweets NY is offering one of her famous letter rings to a Jezebel habitué. My letter ring is rose gold and says BOB (for a rather famous Bob, the once-or-never topical songwriter): do what you will with yours. Pick from 14k white, rose, or yellow gold in shiny or matte finish, and choose 4 letters, et voila- a tiny, golden haiku for your slim, black-varnished finger is born.

To enter: visits Bittersweets NY's site, and between now and Sunday the 20th leave a comment here, at this very post. Do make sure that I'll be able to find you, as I'm most certain you will be the winner. And, don't despair if I am wrong and you are not the winner- capitalism is not dead.

My totems are generally tattered

Corine Griffith

Dolores Costello

Drumroll please, for the extent of my participation in Fashion Week. The magpie nerve throbs strongly these days, tempered as usual, by my extreme cautiousness in acquiring. The usual longings stand strong: black, black, black, flowers, fur (thrift store, faux, or grandmother's only), nudes, ivory, and the 1990s resurface in my sudden need for all that shines.

My castle, my books.

Geneviève Bujold being made up for Anne of the Thousand Days,
in which Elizabeth Taylor made an uncredited appearance,
wore a pearl necklace once possessed by Mary, Queen of Scots

I'm looking forward to reading the lion's share of the Booker Prize shortlist this year, namely The Children's Book, The Little Stranger, and Wolf Hall, which will satisfy my Tudor curiosities in a slightly less pedestrian manner than we previously discussed.

For Wolf and Taxi, who had to stay home while their people got marri'd

photos by KP & JD

Blue bride, bowler hat-groom: welcome home!

Visit, and levitate.

Nazimova and Valentino in Camille, 1921

Witch Party: a happy home for girls who must know all there is to know, particularly about the light of one's soul, and the dark secrets of maligned Egyptian princesses.

lulu begone: bookworm, gin-drinker, $5 at www.ilovejezebel.com

Off to Maine, to wear black sequins to a barnyard wedding, and to plunder some treasures on the meander up and down. See you on Tuesday, dearests.

ME

Otherworld, Andrew Wyeth, 2002

We're heading to Maine this weekend, and spending a night in Portland. It's my first time in Maine since a one-day childhood jaunt to Kennebunk. Any suggestions would be so very welcome. I would love to visit the Olson House (went through a Wyeth frenzy a few years back), but that will have to be another one-day.

An empty house for troublesome little Miriam, gone to Lyon

chateau lamp, $1598

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Miriam glanced up, and in her eyes there was a look that was not ordinary. She was standing by the bureau, a jewel case opened before her. For a minute she studied Mrs. Miller, forcing their eyes to meet, and she smiled. "There’s nothing good here," she said. "But I like this." Her hand held a cameo brooch. "It’s charming."

"Suppose—perhaps you’d better put it back," said Mrs. Miller, feeling suddenly the need of some support. She leaned against the door frame...the light seemed to flutter defectively. "Please, child—a gift from my husband …."

"But it’s beautiful and I want it," said Miriam. "Give it to me."

As she stood, striving to shape a sentence which would somehow save the brooch, it came to Mrs. Miller there was no one to whom she might turn; she was alone...here in her own room in the hushed snow city were evidences she could not ignore or, she knew with startling clarity, resist.

Miriam ate ravenously, and when the sandwiches and milk were gone, her fingers made cobweb movements over the plate, gathering crumbs. The cameo gleamed on her blouse, the blond profile like a trick reflection of its wearer. "That was very nice," she sighed, "though now an almond cake or a cherry would be ideal. Sweets are lovely, don’t you think?"

Mrs. Miller was perched precariously on the hassock, smoking a cigarette. Her hair net had slipped lopsided, and loose strands straggled down her face. Her eyes were stupidly concentrated on nothing and her cheeks were mottled in red patches, as though a fierce slap had left permanent marks.

"Is there a candy - a cake?"

Mrs. Miller tapped ash on the rug. Her head swayed slightly as she tried to focus her eyes. "You promised to leave if I made the sandwiches," she said.

‘Dear me, did I?"

"It was a promise and I’m tired and I don’t feel well at all."

"Musn’t fret," said Miriam. "I’m only teasing."

frm Miriam by Truman Capote

In the event you are a billionaire's baby, born in September

hematite, silver pearl, sapphire bracelet, 1960s, $8500

1880 joan of arc brooch, $75,000

tony duquette necklace, $29,000

diamond and sapphire Buccellati bracelet, 1967, $89,000

I've picked out some jewels for you from 1st Dibs, featuring your birthstone, sapphire. Let me know which one you get.