down to the river to pray

I was Egypt-mad in March. It began with a purchase of an old Life magazine with Liz Taylor as Cleopatra on the cover, continued with a viewing of Death on the Nile, a hunting down of an old Vogue article about Christian Louboutin's mad dash to Cairo as a youth, a search for the perfect copy of The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, the loss of one achingly perfect Egyptiana bag on eBay, the naming of a card, and ended with...Passover.

"seven gentlemen wore trembling wings from cairo"

Clea (the final volume of Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet)
purchased at a book stall in istanbul

Are you there God?

The rotary phone provides the perfect amount of earthliness to this scene. It makes me think of Six Feet Under and Greenwood Cemetery and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and the love affair of O'Keefe and Stieglitz.

(image from John Galliano)

You can take me with you.

I would very much like to attend this party.

The Innocent Voyage.

I returned, last evening, from an annual visit to Cape May with my lovely ladies. We played skee ball and drank champagne, two marks of a Very Fine Weekend to me.

I discovered a wee little shop, tucked under our hotel called Mother Grimm's Bears . The Mother turns one's old furs or wedding dresses into melancholy, Edwardian-faced teddy bears. She'll even turn the monogram on the inside of a fur coat into the paw of a bear. I'm having my bridesmaid's dress from her parent's wedding converted into a bear for my new baby niece.

leaves and wings

I. Love. Books.
Brooklynites have a glorious tradition of leaving unwanted treasures on their stoops for neighbors and passer-bys. I swoop in and spirit them away.

It gives me a particular thrill to find evidences of previous readers stowed inside old books. The first image is from The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, source forgotten, the second a copy of Jane Eyre purchased at the Woodstock Library sale.

in a pale, pistachio dressing room jezebel schemes

Dear Visitors to Jezebel's haphazardly maintained blog-
I am thinking of attending Parsons for their certificate program in interior design this fall. Do you know anything about it? Know anything about being an interior designer in 2007? Know who owns this truck I saw outfitted with a chandelier and brocade roof and small Flemish painting on the dashboard? No? That's okay. Really and truly, though, any pearls of wisdom will be treated like the jewels they are. Please either email jezebel@ilovejezebel.com or leave a comment.
yours truly, Jezebel

one day, i will have an army of lace-makers

Until then, Coral does the job valiantly.

I rest my head on a pillowy star

On Tuesday night I sat on the floor of the Warsaw with the Basement Boys , Serena Jean, KP of Monuments. We ate pierogies under a disco ball and waited with 393 others. I felt like Heart's Dreamboat Annie should be blaring and peach schnapps ought to have filled the flask.



Wilco played for two hours and closed the set with a nod to Mermaid Avenue, Brooklyn. A macrame owl guarded the stage. I feel convinced that J. Tweedy ought to be corresponding on "hyacinth knew the vicious royalty of sweet decay". I've made up a package and will address it to Wilco, Chicago.

art star craft bazaar

come say hello!
(and buy something, too!)

for details: artstarphilly.com

jezebel doesn't live here anymore, or the ladies who launched

in booth 1742 while jezebel furiously caffeinated,
mr. jezebel hid behind the plant called "the lady didn't know."

across the way, were the glamorous and kind-hearted up-towners, tracey and ade.
(shoptracepaper.com)

and down the row, were the chic ladies of superdeluxe, whose decoupaged hypatia i covet so.
(superdeluxenyc.com)

the emperor does have new clothes, i swear it!

jezebel tees and totes have arrived. dress the entire family in our finery as we now stock onesies as well as kiddie and adult tees. the range will be available for purchase at jezebelstationery.etsy.com in short order.

like a wild, black-eyed sicilian widow clutching her breast

I want this chair so badly it hurts.
Ouch. Ow. Oh.
Dolce & Gabbana for Kartell

(photo from design*sponge for House & Garden)

and a cocktail cabinet, too

(found via decor8)

the dreams that mr. jezebel dreams

to which I say:
"Hello Radiohead. Jezebel here. Empty bookshelves?! A tragedy."

neo-luddites, unite!

I love you Miranda July.

www.noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com

isn't it romantic

My friends, the lovebirds have returned to my window sill, making me feel all Snow White-like.


(Snow White images from animationarchive.org)

turn of the screw

In the April issue of Vogue:
The Lake & Stars [a new Manhattan-based lingerie line] is aptly named, the duo says, after the Victorian expression for woman with a black belt in the bedroom arts (as in "She gave me the lakes and the stars...).



Having just purchased Parallel Lives on my weekly $1 cart book binge, I feel as though I owe some time to the Victorians and their deliciously poetic smuttiness.

message from the mount

This photograph is an absolutely mad serving of my yearning for desert spaces and horses of Arabia with a soupcon of Paris surrealism.

(photo by Andrea Galvani)

oui, oui mick-ee mick-ee

postcard by Nathalie Lete, purchased from John Derian

i love a good rhyme scheme

I'm mad for these liner notes from The Raconteurs.

(calligraphy by Aleksey Shirokov)

the girl who collects shells has gone back to the coast

We saw Fionn Regan last night at Union Hall, for the second time. You really ought to purchase his album and listen to it incessantly.

(stills from video for Be Good or Be Gone)

I Dreamed I Saw

Thank you to Gay, of the newly re-vamped IDreamedISaw.com, for linking to Jezebel in such a very divine way.

Mr. Jezebel (beloved of Jezebel) also wants to be your friend: myspace.com/mrjezebel

a room of one's own

please become the nearest and dearest of friends with jezebel at www.myspace.com/jezebelstationery.

also, stay tuned for new (old) offerings from jezebel and her beloved, mr. jezebel.

7057A, I say!

If you are at the NY Gift Show, visit booth 7057A, where you will be greeted by the lovely Mr. Kevin Patrick McCarthy, himself, hand weaving his spacey, Fellini-esque, lanyard lampshades. They are so very cool. As a matter of fact, I have one of his black, scalloped-edge shades hanging languidly in my living room.

www.kevinpatrickmccarthy.com

drum skins of the jazz age

silhouette drum skins. images from jazz by ken burns.

oh art, my heart, my heart

"Since the 1960's, Art Garfunkel has been a voracious reader. We are pleased to present a listing of every book Art has read over the last 30 years." http://www.artgarfunkel.com/library.html

(link via bookslut.com/blog)

lady liberty, dinosaurs, pearls, plum wine, pitchers, and cava

An early morning trip to Ellis Island.

I always intended to includes bits and bobs in outgoing packages. It took a dollar store near a string of cemeteries in New Jersey, four years later, to turn intention into a tangible expression of thought.

The Detritus of a fine New Year's Eve.

(p.s. the awful quality of my photos is distressing, seeing as how I own a brand new digital camera. I suppose it's time to read the manual.)

coral the secretary wore leopard print gloves

grand hotel

Please come visit jezebel at The Gift on Grand, this Saturday the 16th, from 11 am until 8 pm, located at 33 Grand Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And then, madly inspired by the industry you've just partaken in, please watch Grand Hotel.

more dearest, darling stockists

i need to update my website. badly. until then, please note that, in addition to my website and the stockists listed there within, jezebel is also available at:

internet: www.day-lab.com, www.wreneleven.com

domestic:
sweet home furnishings- little rock, arkansas
candy store- san francisco, california
rsvp- ketchum, idaho
hazel- chicago, illinois
essentials- northampton, massachusetts
fuschia home- lenox, massachusetts
greenwich letterpress- new york, new york
maiden hong kong- brooklyn, new york
smith- southampton, new york
three turtle doves- new york, new york
collier west- columbus, ohio
strawberry and jam- new hope, pennsylvania
figments- providence, rhode island
curtsy bella- seattle, washington
nancy- seattle, washington

international:
distracted- perth, australia
red door gallery- edinburgh, scotland

the darlings glowed in the violet hour

I read seasonally, thematically, with an organizational system that relies on a hazy, haphazard, Jezebelian system of thought more heavily than an established methodology such as Dewey's Decimal System, Robert's Rules of Order, or Murphy's Law.

I am, at the moment, readying myself for a vespertine winter with my black swan. I finished The Voyage of the Narwhal, had the annual meeting with Andersen's Snow Queen over cinnamon coffee, and am now living in the particular phantasm of Mark Helprin's Winter Tale. It is possible I might never leave.