The Beauty of Woman

Harpers Bazaar UK via Identical Eye (been out a month, PGT!)

The sum of the parts, the individual parts. Be bold. This only happens once.

3!

The clock struck midnight, and we sang Happy Birthday to The Shrimp. Teepee will get and give one million kisses on her special day, making her special day exactly like every other special day.

One thing for a fantasy

late 19th century American sled, wrought iron swan necks and heads, $1400

It's an easy business to begin, but you must protect it, not expose it to real life. Begin with a plan for painted nails, or the tilt of Anna Mouglalis's mouth, or the smell of morning coffee as snow begins to fall. Imagine a vestibule, marble console, long mirror. Think of Virginia Woolf, April in Paris, spring in Mexico. Draw connections. Be a spider, pull, pull, pull. Paint the picture in parts. You are whole, it will be whole.

Straight Shot

Iris there with humid bow, Arthur Rackham

For a time I lay like her, with my eyes closed.
Then she said, 'I'm Queen of the May.'
She was sitting up, turned to me, propped on one arm. She had woven a rough crown out of the oxeyes and wild pinks that grew in the grass around us. It sat lopsidedly on her uncombed hair; and she wore a smile of touching innocence. She did not know it, but it was at first for me an intensely literary moment. I could place it exactly: England's Helicon. I had forgotten that there are metaphors and metaphors, and that the greatest lyrics are very rarely anything but direct and unmetaphysical. -The Magus, John Fowles

Slip of an easy thing

borrowed from {this is glamorous}, borrowed from ?

It's winter, not deep, post crackle and sparkle, and the ferocious want for bitter greens and fresh flowers blooms.

Comes and goes

John and Yoko, Stella Vine

Do just one thing tonight: watch LENNONYC.

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

Victorian seed pearl salamander brooch c. 1890s, $250 (so cheap!)

harlequin girandole brooch, England c. 1790, $3800

platinum, 18k, tsavorite, garnet and diamond dragonfly brooch c. 1900, $28,910

tourmaline, garnet and diamond earrings, $128,500

diamond and garnet bangle c. 1870, $13800

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

The horn did trumpet, heed it's call!

Victoria regia, Nymphaceae. Lily pads in water. 1922.

Let us all be the copse, the oasis, shelter in the storm, and we will build a forest, a warm, lit haven.

Let there be love, let there be light, let there be expansion of spirit and mind, let there be good health and peace.

Enter, 2011.

2010
2009
2008

Tucked, tousled

Shona Heath

Decadence, thy name is Five Leaves. Last night: house made ricotta with fresh thyme, chestnut honey, figs, Maldon sea salt and fruit bread, roasted delicata squash with creamy fregola, fresh ginger, marscarpone, and fresh soy beans and french fries and a Kir and a Blonde Redhead sighting and our (R!) almost 10 year old friendship.

Let us remind us all

Lady Lavery, 1886-1935

Reflection, for we are 2 days away, reflection, for we are always days away.

Be steady and well ordered in your life so that you may be fierce and original in your work. -Gustave Flaubert

Too elegant to be a thief, Margaret Rose

La coquille, Redon c. 1903

Remembered that the fur stole I keep on Coral's chair, to hide a missing button, is made to be worn in weather like this. So, here I am, last night, wearing my stole in bed, wind whipping, writing to you, thinking of black irises and symmetry, stacking rings and Tuscany.

Come with me, I'll buy you a necklace

Early 1900s Hand Screened Wallpaper, Erie Basin

A day for Brave Irene and a cashmere one-piece.

A true star can never be stolen.

Hedy Lamarr publicity shot for Ziegfield Girl, 1941

Having stuffed our burlap sacks with enough greenery and crimson to garland a dozen windows, we set about choosing a tree. "It should be," muses my friend, "twice as tall as a boy. So a boy can't steal the star." The one we pick is twice as tall as me...Once a car stops, and the rich mill owner's lazy wife leans out and whines: "Giveya two-bits" cash for that ol tree." Ordinarily my friend is afraid of saying no; but on this occasion she promptly shakes her head: "We wouldn't take a dollar." The mill owner's wife persists. "A dollar, my foot! Fifty cents. That's my last offer. Goodness, woman, you can get another one." In answer, my friend gently reflects: "I doubt it. There's never two of anything." -"A Christmas Memory", Truman Capote, 1956

Hail, hail new queen!

Two Pierrots Balancing on Swans and Two Dancers, Hans Christian Andersen

Left work past dusk, but not too far, and raised a glass to celebrate my forever friend, the new Mrs. Eliz D-L, to be.

My castle, my books.

contact sheets of Michael Caine and Anna Karina for the film version of The Magus

Having an exclusive dreamtime relationship with toast with warm pears, marscarpone, honey and black pepper and The Magus.

"that sole token of human imperfection"

fede ring, England, 15th century, $2900

...in the centre of Georgiana's left cheek there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as it were, with the texture and substance of her face. In the usual state of her complexion--a healthy though delicate bloom--the mark wore a tint of deeper crimson, which imperfectly defined its shape amid the surrounding rosiness. When she blushed it gradually became more indistinct, and finally vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that bathed the whole cheek with its brilliant glow. But if any shifting motion caused her to turn pale there was the mark again, a crimson stain upon the snow, in what Aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearful distinctness. Its shape bore not a little similarity to the human hand, though of the smallest pygmy size. Georgiana's lovers were wont to say that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand upon the infant's cheek, and left this impress there in token of the magic endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts. Many a desperate swain would have risked life for the privilege of pressing his lips to the mysterious hand. -"The Birthmark", Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1843

Mirabelle

Bambi and Mother

The beautiful thing about hard work is that it allows us to forget that which we'd like to forget. The truth, though? It is impossible to forget.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday

AnOther Loves

Come visit, we're snuggling. Find me in bed with Cléo from 5 to 7. Bring me flowers and I'll mix French 75s. No parties, just tête–à–têtes, and a clear trail of candles from here to Orion's belt.

Suffering and Shambolic

The Midnight Party, Joseph Cornell

"What I've done in the past is the history, what I'll do in the future is a mystery." -TYSON

The absence of black

Federico Fellini kissing Ingrid Berman, 1957

This morning, we are two.

Rebuilding

I Am Love

In this early morning dream, Lucy Harmon stalked by me, navy and black evening gown, hair piled on her expansive head. There were attacks, plastic bags exploding underfoot, escape by cruise ship, seasickness, return to land, a performance piece in piles of French lingerie, a library, a rapt audience of movie stars and Nobel Prize winners, and then, her expansive head.

Great light of the steppes

Charles Burchfield

Work! and then I visit Count and Countess Tolstoy at Yásnaya Polyána.

Altar

in Paris, via D-H

It's Thursday, we stayed up too late last night watching a movie in bed, and I've just had a burst of enlightenment. 24° F is no weather for cascades of radiance, but the klieg lights of love are on. I've lined you all up in little terra cotta pots on a window with south-facing light. Let's see what happens. I'll do my part, never mind what you do, and coffee, keep brewing and perking for you are the spine of sustained eminantion of enlightenment.

What to do when it's all upside-down

Elizabeth Taylor c. 1960

"We both worry about Constance. There are depths which neither of us have fully explored, but we have gained a great idea of her." -The Master, Colm Tóibín

A new way of looking. We thrive on instinct, gut reactions, first impressions, when really, we're all just a sketch to each other.

Managing Misunderstanding

Mary Green sleep mask

Sometimes things don't go the way of dreams. I'd like to sleep away a few days, and wake when things are more recognizable.

Fallen Kingdom

Neuschwanstein

Vision isn't always easy to see.

Taking you to

42nd Street

To be frank, shit's gone bananas (in the very best way) at work lately, and I'm wiped. If I owe you (life!) something, I strive to knock down my list on Saturday (knock it back, knock it back) before I catch up with Amal and our friend Dwr's on Saturday night. Sunday we go to visit Eleanor and her pleasure palace with our families, and Monday? I start again.

Star-bellies

pearl earrings by Jezebel, $120 at Catbird

Of august gold-wreathed and beautiful

Aphrodite I shall sing to whose domain

belong the battlements of all sea-loved

Cyprus where, blown by the moist breath

of Zephyros, she was carried over the

waves of the resounding sea on soft foam.

The gold-filleted Horae happily welcomed

her and clothed her with heavenly raiment.

Demetrios Chalcondyles, 1488

Dress your best, like a goddess birthed from the inside of a most iconoclast, absinthe-gurgling sort of oyster.

Under new blankets

frm Life

The pond is full! How lucky we were to spend the evening with replies of love and anticipation.

After coffee

19th century French bed

Looking for that which is skybound: ballerinas, constellations, magic carpets, hot air balloons, flying saucers, Esther Williams.

All these years and you never knew

Pavlova and her pet swan, Jack

When he was smaller, my 12 year old brother declared he was going to be a geneticist. "Why?" asked our father. "So my grandparents never die," replied my brother.

Soon after she died he wrote a story, 'Travelling Companions', in which William, travelling in Italy from Germany, met her by chance in Milan Cathedral, having first seen her in front of Leonardo's The Last Supper. He loved describing her white umbrella with a violet lining and the sense of intelligent pleasure in her movements, her glance and her voice. He could control her destiny now that she was dead, offer her the experiences she would have wanted, and provide drama for a life which had been so cruelly shortened. He wondered if this had happened to other writers who came before him, if Hawthorne or George Eliot had written to make the dead come back to life, had worked all day and all night, like a magician or an alchemist, defying fate and time and all the implacable elements to re-create a sacred life. -The Master, Colm Tóibín

How to stay immortal, when telephone calls are no longer.

The Economy of Loss.

That secret stress? The most pedestrian of all: money. I am not yet ready to say goodbye to it all.

It came down to money, the sweetness it added to the soul. Money was a kind of grace. Everywhere he had been, the having of it and the holding of it had set people apart. It gave men a beautiful distant control over the world, and it gave women a poised sense of themselves, an inner light which even old age could not obliterate. -The Master, Colm Toibin

Forgive me my failures.

My castle, my books.

Henry James Family (I don't know what this means), Eliot Elisofon, frm Life

The secret life has been dull without my pages. Eschewing all with The Master by Colm Toibin, and all I want (untrue) is a day with him and endless coffee.

Forego the popular for the truly important and always change

Poppies Dorothea Tanning

I went to Carla's memorial service at Politics & Prose yesterday. I've been having wretched reader's block lately, but I went wild in the remainder room and came home with The Master, Mariette in Ecstasy, The Magus, and The Bad Girl. Thanks for all of it, Carla. I wouldn't have known where Oaxaca was without you.

HORIZON

Nouvelle Amour lace bodysuit

Winter's approaching and all I want is alternating layers of lace and cashmere, the cashmere in the form of slouchy, nipped sweatpants. Proper hydration (terrible at it!), fur collar, perfume cloud, and black eyeliner complete a winter uniform, punctuated once weekly by a very short dress with 2 pairs of tights, thick black knit thigh-highs, and heels. Are you thrilled yet?

T.A.T.: We do laugh.

Going to see old school chum Nick Kroll tonight. We (Amal and me) are really hoping for some Oh, Hello. I know the kids love Fabrice Fabrice, Bobby Bottleservice, and The Ed Hardy Boyz, but I'm partial to Gil Faizon and George St Geegland's white wine and cocaine soaked Upper East Side antics.

G.S.G: Why did you cheat on her?
G.F.: Well, I was on tour.
G.S.G: You were on a museum tour.
G.F.: Yeah, it was an M.C. Escher exhibit. I didn't know which way was up.

Genius.

Some rules you don't break

Eugène Atget

Goddess, nymph, concierge of a hôtel particulier- I've done it! I bought a wedding dress.

Yawn, sigh, stretch, satisfied smile

Dusting off some old moves, my kitten. I revisited some forgotten deeds on Sunday night, and turns out, I've done a thing or two. How quickly we lose all the people that we were.

Lie about

Chagall

Dear Kids,

I did a lot of visualizing this weekend. Things like, where we'll live with Teepee's baby, Baby, the rings to mark our band of love and what I want to be when I grow up (a writer, want to hire me?). I did not visualize whirled peas.

Thanks, Mom, for yelling at me. I tried. I will keep trying. I think I might have been too myself this go around, so I don't expect to be chosen, but I will keep trying.

Love,
Circle talker

Phoenix

Dali at the Jazz Loft

I missed you yesterday. I was in the shadow of the Jazz Loft with my oldest friend in the world (he gave me a basket of primroses on our tenth friendship anniversary, which was fifteen years ago).

The clock only ticks when I think of the sharing

A Sea of Queen Anne's Lace, Charles Burchfield

Before winter begins, a gathering of my every-winter tales: Auntie Mame, Vespertine (I listen, a love story), a dip into Proust, the Newberry & the Caldecott lists, fairy tales (H.C. Andersen's "The Snow Queen" in particular). We'll explore more as Demeter waits.

The Moderns

Henri Matisse

The state of my dress, or undress as is currently stands, remains questionable. All the sAlons are booked, booked, booked. "What will you wear to a certain considerably important Sunday brunch in late March?" bellows the sphinx. "Isabel Archer's 21st century cousin is loaning me something- mauve, I think-" I shout back, good-naturedly, and we both have a good laugh.

Reconsidering

Eyes close, curtain up, in the gloaming there you are, just you and your mother's voice in its best timbre, and here it is: our first lesson in the rhythm of words as sentient beings.

In the great green room
there was a telephone
and a red balloon
and a picture of...

The cow jumping over the moon
And there were three little bears sitting on chairs

Goodnight room
Goodnight moon
Goodnight cow jumping over the moon
Goodnight light and the red balloon
Goodnight bears, goodnight chairs
Goodnight kittens
and goodnight mittens
Goodnight clocks and goodnight socks
Goodnight little house
And goodnight mouse
Goodnight comb and goodnight brush
Goodnight nobody
Goodnight mush
And goodnight to the old lady whispering "hush"
Goodnight stars
goodnight air
Goodnight noises everywhere.

Margaret Wise Brown, 1947

earlier reconsiderations

947-1752-4-1485

Goodnight Studio

We sleep, we rise, we work, we work, we watch, we listen. Most of our hours are spent away. Keep your secret self always strong.

May G-d watch between us when we are apart.

Fired!

textile by Vanessa Bell, 1913

I had a rather ginny drink last night with R who's in the throes of a wonderfully Bloomsbury moment, apparel-wise, and was accompanied home by the whooshing of my near floor length black leather skirt and a Balthazar baguette (the kindness of strangers, namely when I am with R). He had rejected the skirt, I wore it anyhow. This morning, I said, "you know, R says my skirt is very on-trend." "She's right," he says, distractedly. "It is very un-trend."

Best to protect yourself

I just had these evil eye rings made in India. They are oxidized sterling silver, set with 18 1.3 mm rosecut diamonds surrounding a single 2.5 mm rosecut diamond center stone. Want one? Want three? Oh, I do love you! They're $288 and are available at Catbird or you can email me directly at leighbatnick@gmail.com. Detail shots will be available shortly - I'm too impatient & excited not to share with you cabbages.

Consistency lies in longing

Valentino sculpture lace pumps, $4700

Good morning, it's Monday. Let us begin our week with a flight of fancy, involving the M. Building and shoes for Mnemosyne, had she enjoyed champagne, and its 54 million bubbles per glass.