Lepidopterist Rising

Vera and Vladimir Nabokov, on the hunt

Nabokov's final and unfinished work, The Original of Laura, has been spared the crematorium by his son Dmitri, and will be published on November 3. 

Fragile as Fingernails

Kartell Glue Cinderella flats, $135

concept art for Disney's Cinderella by Mary Blair, frm The Invisible Agent

I think I love the clear Glue Cinderella flats by Kartell. I have a perfect pair of patent leather slips on, accented by a clear panel above the toes that I've worn to tatters. I might have to have these for spring. (via UrbanDaddy)

Wolf by the Ears

image of Monticello frm

View of the West Front of Monticello and Garden, Jane Braddick, 1825

The Pulitzers were announced today and I will be reading The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family immediately.

My castle, my books.

pages from the sketchbook on an anonymous diarist who recorded makeshift memorials for Abraham Lincoln

frm Maira Kalman's And the Pursuit of Happiness

Reading Lincoln's Melancholy by Joshua Wolf Shenk. I'll let you know if I, too, fall in love with A. Lincoln.

Scenes from a party

I wore Swedish snow leopard and my favorite 5 yr old shoved Gabe in a closet

Because Teepee is a perfume purist

the newest squeak toy in Little's collection- thanks Lin!

Bless this Mess

The apartment is still in a state of dishabille from this weekend (evidence: photo 1), but oh it feels good to do what you set out to do!

Frederick Seidel

“So this is where you write?”
“My boy,” he said, “this is where I live.”

pleased to meet you sir, frm the Times Magazine

A shy pornographer at Nepenthe's

I'm irritable and tonight I think Big Sur is the answer. Maybe I'll meet the ghost of Henry Miller while I'm there.

Pick-pocketing

boldy and brashly. Image nicked (nay, borrowed) frm Pia. Expect to see paper lanterns with black velvet ribbon swaying to and fro if you happen by my place.

Yes, there's poetry, and the lost souls of the South, but I love him most when he makes me laugh

Bob Dylan and Albert Grossman

Bill Flanagan: The instrumental sections on your albums have a different quality than the usual rock instrumental sections. For instance, on an Aerosmith record, at least part of it is about Joe Perry's solo. While there's wonderful playing on BEYOND HERE LIES NOTHING, we don't hear the usual guitar soloing technique. Is there a special way you approach the instrumental sections on a record?

Bob Dylan: What can I say, if I had Joe Perry with me everything would obviously be different. As it is though, he wasn't there. Soloing is not a big part of my records anyway. Nobody buys them to hear solos. What I try to do is to make sure that the instrumental sections are dynamic and are extensions of the overall feeling of the song.

(interview frm here)

Now the strangest thing I've seen was a t-shirt turning green/In envy of a turtle dove

Quiet, quiet and I'm listening to the sounds of Laurel Canyon, where I've never been so this is what it sounds like to me (do you hear me, Lester Bangs?), watched Breezy a few days ago, and I envy Joni Mitchell wearing a backless dress, which I cannot,  I simply cannot.  Though maybe I will, anyway.

Jezebel in Time Out Chicago

Thank you, Time Out Chicago!

Day for Night

photo by Tim Walker

While I won't have a canoe doubling as a settee, I hope that similar detritus washes up on the shores of my birthday party on Saturday. There will be mustard fruit with mascarpone, pitchers of Bloody Mary's, a puppy in a party hat, and all sorts of people I love.

The Exquisite PRESENTation

Dear Erica Weiner sent me an early birthday gift. I found them in my mailbox last night after an evening's festivities, and wouldn't you know- I woke up wearing them this morning. Hand-cut sterling silver sequins from the 1930s really are the way to go.

Ode to a small thing (not Teepee) vol. 3

This blog of mine generally hovers in the world of fantasy, or at least reality viewed through very deep-rose lenses, but vague truth seems to have elbowed it's way in lately.  To wit, I would like to thank the dear waiter at D.O.C. Wine Bar who saw my tears the other night and slipped me a glass of red.  I aim to find the pearl in every oyster, no matter how rotten an oyster may seem, and his kindness was bright and shining, and not to hard to find.

Looking for photos for this post, I found a blurry shot of a girl wearing a dress that I own, with a haircut similar to mine own.  

Message

art deco ring frm doyle & doyle

A PLACE GREEN AND GROWING

Bat shit insane

is how things have been lately. Maybe it's the moon, maybe it's because I'm about to be 30 and I just don't have enough white hairs. Whatever it is, it's nuts and tonight it's just making me laugh.

World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

stolen frm Rony

Spied! Teepee in her tent!

Part of having the world's sweetest pup means that every time I turn the camera on to photograph Teepee she comes running to say hello and give kisses.  This morning though, she was sufficiently worn down by a weekend at Grandma's to stay cozied in her tent.  In front of her tent you'll spot her mangled fox stole, which is about half it's original size, and has also sadly been beheaded.  Her toys and bones are stashed in a leopard train case, and the linoleum floors are an aesthetic sin, covering beautiful wood, of course.  

Under the rooftops of Paris, in Brooklyn

photo by Brassai

lou and cleo, under the roofs of paris available at www.ilovejezebel.com

It's been a Paris sort of weekend. On Friday night, Teepee slept on my lap as Dave and his lovely lady friends and myself dove gleefully into a box of macarons provided by Nathan, and today I plumbed the depths of Netflix's watch instantly cache and came up with many Paris-based films. Yesterday, I spent with my favorite Italians in Carroll Gardens, but what's a little continental travelling amongst friends.

A tent for Teepee

My brother and Stacy came home from an Ikea trip with this tent for Teepee. Pictures in her new abode to follow, as soon as she stops growling and circling.

The Politics of Prose

Shakespeare and Company, Paris

I spent my post-college days working in the children's section, and then as the sidelines buyer of Politics & Prose, an independent bookstore and DC institution, where I am absolutely certain I received an education as valuable as the one I paid for at another DC institution.  Reading this article by Jeanette Winterson, I learn that "At present, small bookshops in France can thrive because the chains aren't allowed to undercut the cover price of any title by more than 5%."  As is stands here, Barnes & Noble, et al.  are selling you books for nearly the very same price that publishers charge independent bookstores for them.    

Giulietta/Giamatti

Watching John Adams, and you cannot convince me that Giulietta Masina did not influence Paul Giamatti. Uncanny. Oh, and I am taken with the HBO version of Thomas Jefferson.

Hamptons Hydrangeas

Growing up a stone's throw from the beach somehow has left me pale and with an aversion to fish of grandiose proportions.  It also meant that as a child, we rarely explored beaches much beyond our metaphorical backyard.  The only time I spent in the Hamptons was driving out with my mother and grandmother to visit dear Sylvia, who painted my portrait in black-and-white when I was very small.  Plundering Lula #8, which I must admit is too too girly for me, I found the Grey Gardens Collection (inspired by the style of Edith Bouvier Beale) and these signature hydrangea pillows, that smack deliciously of my grandmother, Nana Hannah Daisy and her younger sister, Muriel Iris.  

Glorious.

The opening credits of Gloria, with paintings by Romare Bearden, are so gosh-darned gorgeous, as is Gloria's flower-filled apartment, as is Gloria in the form of an Ungaro clad Gena Rowlands.

She was dressed in the faint fawns and blues a Persian cat would choose to wear if it were changed into a woman

Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire by Thomas Gainsborough, 1787

title frm The Fountain Overflows

She of the paisley arms

Teepee's very dear friend, Tippy Porter, proprietor of Old Hollywood, fellow Catbirder, has been singled out by New York Magazine in a very big way.  Can you spot a little bit of Jezebel tucked in the photo on the left?

If you can keep me

For my mother, the boxer, who's had to hang up her literal gloves for a metaphorical pair

Marc by Marc Jacobs "Miss Cure" tee

A Modern Flower

images frm NYPL Digital Gallery

Desperately, thirstily craving flowers and florals against a bed of black, with phosphorescent pops of fluorescent lingerie straps discreetly presenting themselves. I plan on hacking garish crystals off a perfect pair of age-old nude sandals and replacing with millinery flowers.

My castle, my books.

Just finished The Thinking Reed by Dame Rebecca West. Not altogether sure how I felt, yet comfortable with her cadence, I'm now working on The Fountain Overflows.

When it snows in March,

and you have lived in an apartment since August and are an absolute cinephile who has neglected to plug in her television and dvd player, opting instead for precarious lap-perched, laptop viewing, it is time to plug in and test-drive the system with Une Femme est Une Femme. Teepee is nowhere to be seen, which leads me to believe she is sitting on the rug, watching, while I work in the kitchen, with occasional breaks to work on a grocery list for the baked potato soup I plan on making tonight, because, it is snowing and it is March.