More Romeo & Juliet on Facebook

What is it about the young lovers that so inspires the cyber scribes?


(First Romeo & Juliet installment here!)

NYT: Catching up with Jane Birkin

New York Times' T Magazine has an interview today with Birkin about music (two of her old albums are being released on CD) and about style (what it was like to be an Hermès muse.)

From the NYT story: “I was on an airplane,” Birkin said, explaining the bag’s genesis, “when a plastic bag holding all my things broke and everything fell out — my date book, papers, everything. Just as I was saying how I wish Hermès would make a bag that could fit all my things, the man sitting next to me happened to work for Hermès — it was Jean-Louis Dumas, the head designer! They already had the Kelly bag, named after Grace Kelly, so he began work on the Birkin bag. I went down to the atelier, and he had made it in cardboard. And we talked about it, and I said they should make some changes, like making pockets bigger. And that’s how it was made.”

Just like that!

Irish Times: Vintage Love

Happy Monday my dears. I hope you had a relaxing weekend!

As usual I spent lots of time this weekend reading (finishing the Philip Roth book and starting the new biography of Cleopatra). During my Internet newspaper rounds, I found this wonderful story in the Irish Times Magazine.

The headline says: "Wearing vintage doesn't have to make you feel like second-hand Rose." Indeed! I LOVE this rose colored pettycoat!

Cheeky Commoners Graffiti the Royal Wall

While HM Queen Elizabeth II is set to debut her official Facebook page this week, some of the Queen's fans have been operating
another page on Facebook in honor of Her Majesty for about two years.


There's just one problem: the account administrators haven't updated the page since June. And in their absence some very cheeky commoners have been leaving all sorts of messages and photos on The Royal Wall...


Some of their greetings include interesting art (show here)...


And other images not quite so nice. Where are the Facebook Beefeaters when you need them!?

Happy Weekend & Links

Happy weekend everyone! What do you have planned? I plan on watching movies on DVD while making jewelry for a show I have coming up in Silver Lake. I'm also looking forward to starting a new book, "Mr. Cartwell," by Rebecca Hunt. It's been sizzling hot here in Los Angeles and I'd really love to spend a little time at the beach!

Before I sign off for the weekend, here's my link roundup...

First off: Holly Becker's book, "Decorate: 1,000 Design Ideas for Every Room in Your Home" is
on pre-sale on Amazon. I love Becker's blog, decor8, and I can't wait to get the book!

New York Times' Cathy Horyn, one of my favorite fashion writers, reviews
the Chronicle reissue of Diana Vreeland's 1980 book, "Allure."

Here's a very insightful report:
What your profile picture really says about you.

Ian Frazier's take on people who write in the margins of their books.

and...

A peek at the stuff inside Emma Watson's Mulberry bag.

Have a great weekend!

(Photo, above, from here.)

Three Important Questions

Hello everyone. I've been going through some of my old posts here on the English Muse, trying to streamline the categories. In the process, I revisited three of my most popular posts since I started my blog two years ago.

Each post poses a question The responses are very cool!

Here are the links:

Why did you start your blog?

Where are you and what time is it there?

and...

What are you reading?

Take a look and leave an answer!

If Romeo and Juliet had Facebook

Found on this fantastic blog!

So this week I'm reading...

Philip Roth's "The Humbling," about an actor who can no longer act. So he runs off to the country where me meets a much younger (and very sexy) woman. Good ol' Roth.

The New Yorker's profile of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. I have a friend who fell completely in love with him after seeing the Social Network. If you, too, are craving more details about Zuckerberg's life, you'll find plenty in the New Yorker piece.

During stop lights I've been scanning "On Solitude" by Michel De Montaigne. It's a lovely, slim letterpress edition from Penguin's Great Idea series. Very easy to carry around. And amazingly insightful.

At Starbucks: flipping through the new Anthropologie catalogue.

Also rereading underlined paragraphs in Michael Cunningham's book,
"The Hours."

"She looks older, Louis thinks in astonishment. It's finally happening. What a remarkable thing, these genetic trip wires, the way a body can sail along essentially unaltered, decade after decade, and then in a few years capitulate to age."
wow.

Just picked up:

The Chronicle Books reissue of Diana Vreeland's "Allure." Goodie!


What are you reading at the moment?

Do you write in the margins?

The University of Texas at Austin acquired a bevy of books, letters, manuscripts and random scraps of paper belonging to the late writer David Foster Wallace last spring. Now, the university is starting to post its scans of the author's notes and scribblings on the Internet:



It's a researcher's paradise...



And a librarian's nightmare.



I love to write in the margins of paperback books, but I usually can't bring myself to mark up a new hardback. Last week, I almost bought a first-edition, autographed copy of Michael Cunningham's new book, By Nightfall. I didn't because I knew I would be too tempted to underline his beautiful prose. Now I'm waiting for the paperback.

One of my friends deals with the guilt factor by using post-it notes to mark important passages instead. Another friend marks at will, rereads the book later, and writes in the margins again.

What about you?

(Above scans of Wallace's books from the University of Texas.)

A Review: 'Unbearable Lightness,' by Portia de Rossi

"Some remarks, like radioactive elements, have a lingering half-life that allows them to poison one generation after another. One that still contaminates our body-obsessed popular culture is the Duchess of Windsor's notorious admonition that no woman can ever be 'too rich or too thin.'

"As the age of anorexia has succeeded the age of anxiety — or perhaps simply compounded it — we've learned just how wrong the duchess really was...."

(Please read the rest of my review of de Rossi's book -- a meditation on the pressures of Hollywood and working out one's identity in the glare of celebrity -- in the LA Times today!)



(Photo by Lori Shepler.)

American Dior

"With the introduction of the New Look, Dior quickly became American fashion’s ultimate agent provocateur, playing on the country’s appetite for newness and for French savoir-faire," according to a new book debuting this week from Assouline.



"Christian Dior lived the American dream. From the first time he set foot in New York, the legendary designer had a special relationship with the United States, and he may even be more important in America than in France."



"In one gesture, he had given women a whole new shape. Dior’s long, voluminous skirts were more extravagant and feminine than anything seen in fashion for decades."



Compared to the upcoming Taschen tomes, this one is a relative bargain at $70.

*

American Dior
By Kate Betts
Hardcover, Jacket / 11.5 x 14.5"

Meal Reading

Happy Monday!

Samantha Bee, comedian and correspondent for the "Daily Show," divulged in a New York Times Magazine article on Sunday that one of her life's joys is "Meal Reading." "I like to read cookbooks while I eat and fantasize about other meals," she told reporter Edward Lewine. "I am a cookbook fanatic."

And eating? She added: "I go to sleep at night thinking about what will be my breakfast. It is just a really big part of my day."

I love reading with breakfast too. I usually read the morning papers and magazines. But I'll read anything, even the backs of cereal boxes.

In celebration of this simple pleasure, I pulled together a small selection of photos taken by Jennifer Causey for her crisply elegant blog,
Simply Breakfast:






Have a lovely day. See you back here later this afternoon!

Happy Weekend & Links

Happy weekend, everyone! I hope you're liking the new focus on books and media here at the English Muse!

Here's a little roundup of some of my favorite links this week:

Margaret Atwood creates superhero outfits for Twitter avatars.

The ultimate reading divan.

Lady Chatterley's Legacy.

Will you buy an E-Reader this holiday season?
(The answer receiving the most votes might surprise you!)

What political attack ads would have looked like if Thomas Jefferson had final cut.
(US darlings, don't forget to vote Tuesday!)

The London Underground: The Pleasure Seekers

Amanda Hesser's trio of favorite books.

and...

Two wonderful new works by Michael Cunningham and Ian Frazier.

xoxo

PS: How could I forget? Happy Halloween.

(Photo above from a Banana Republic ad.)

A Look Inside Cecil Beaton's Scrapbooks

Yes, the legendary photographer kept scrapbooks, like the rest of us...






Only Beaton's multiple scrapbooks are packed with snapshots and magazine clippings of society figures, royals, dancers, actors and statesmen taken during his long career as a photographer for publications like Vogue and Vanity Fair.

Assouline on Nov. 22 is coming out with a 400-page coffee table book -- called Beaton, the Art of the Scrapbook -- that replicates some of the pages.

The blurb: "Composed of his own prints and clippings from magazines, newspapers, and playbills, the pages are an instructive record of his creative process....To flip through the pages is to enter a fabulous and surreal party where Tallulah Bankhead rubs shoulders with a bust of Voltaire and a portrait of Stravinsky; where Beaton's first trip on the Queen Mary coincides with Queen Elizabeth's coronation. Beaton's scrapbooks allowed the artist to play with pictures he had taken (and perhaps those he wished he had) in the dreamspace of artifice that was always his favorite setting."

Something to add to the Xmas list!

Anatomy of Style: Vintage

I positively devoured this Guardian story by the paper's weekend Space editor, Hannah Booth. In this piece, Miss Booth pokes through the home of vintage maven Jo Kornstein, owner of the posh London boutique,
Howie & Belle.

Have a look:





Turquoise paint and vintage satin pillows. Outstanding!

Girl x 45 Million

Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy has become" the publishing phenomenon of the young century, with international sales exceeding 45 million," according to a very cool story in today's Los Angeles Times by my former colleague Scott Timberg.

He writes that Larsson's books have managed, in the 25 months since the first novel's U.S. publication, to go through almost 200 printings here. And next month, publisher Knopf will release its Millennium Trilogy Deluxe Boxed Set: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

Sara Nelson, books director of O: The Oprah Magazine, told Timberg that the heroine's ambiguity is part of her appeal. "She's not terribly well defined," Nelson says, pointing to her complicated sexuality. "Is she lovable? Yes, but she's not necessarily likable. Lisbeth is a hybrid, but the books are hybrids too — a chronicle of the media business, a comment on society.... It's not a standard police procedural."

UPDATE: Here's the link to the NYT's review of the Hornet's Nest movie.

(Illustration by Helena Lloyd.)

If you happen to be in London...

The Royal College of Arts is preparing to hold its "secret" postcard sale on Nov. 20. This is how it works: Every year 1,000 artists, designers, illustrators -- some of them would renowned -- donate their works for a one-day only sale.

The postcards are signed on the back, so the author's identity remains a secret until the cards are purchased. Last year, Tracey Emin, Gerhard Richter, Bill Viola, Julian Opie and Grayson Perry, well as fashion designers Sir Paul Smith, Manolo Blahnik and Erdem participated in the event, which raises funds for the arts college. (There's a flat rate per postcard: £45, and only four cards per person.)

There will be several special viewings of the cards, starting on Nov. 12, at the RCA campus in London -- but you have to register online first.

Do you have running shoes and a good eye? Give it a try. (And let me know how it goes!!)

Twig Hutchinson Captures the Castle

Twig Hutchinson, star stylist of the Toast catalogues, cleverly updated her online portfolio to look like an actual book, complete with a quote from Dodie Smith's "I Capture the Castle."

"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink..."






LOVE!

Complete fluff...

I was very excited to discover today that the Barnes & Noble Review has a special section for books on clouds.

This is how they describe "The Invention of Clouds," by Richard Hamblyn:

"A fascinating study of the amateur meteorologist who, in the early 19th century, 'forged the language of the skies.' Creating the classifications -- cirrus, stratus, cumulus, nimbus -- which are now familiar, Luke Howard captured the imagination of contemporary artists and scientists, as well as generations of their heirs."

It also reminds me that I need to get out more with my Polaroid camera. (I took this photo, above, last year.)

Book Covers, Re-imagined...

I love it when independent artists decide to create their own book covers...the results are always unexpected. Take these for example:





They were created by two Portuguese women -- Sandra G. and Orquidea C. -- now living in Amsterdam. They used their own photography and wit....As a result, their sensibility is so wonderfully European. It's hard for me to pick a favorite. Maybe The Hours? What do you think?

(More on their blog, re-cover project.)


Oh, and I almost forgot, today is Dylan Thomas' birthday...(thank you Giulia!)

Remember:

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Taschen's Audrey Hepburn

The luxury books publisher released a glossy volume of Audrey photos last month...




The photos were taken by Paramount Studio stills photographer Bob Willoughby between 1953-1966. Taschen put the volume on sale Sept. 11, as part of an exhibit of the photos at its gallery in Brussels, Belgium.

At $700 each, the books sold out almost instantly.

If there's a second printing, this tops my Xmas list!

(Luckly you can see the entire book online here.)

Escape Reading

Hello everyone. I finished two freelance pieces and now I'm rewarding myself with an afternoon escape -- reading about Paris. My latest book about my favorite city is called "The Secret Life of the Seine" by Mort Rosenblum, former Editor in Chief of the International Herald Tribune. Rosenblum lived for a time on a 54-foot boat made of Burmese teak and brass, tied up alongside the barges near the Pont Alexandre II in the center of Paris.

This is what I call escape reading. Without it, life would be so dreary.

What's your favorite escape book?

(Photo by Miu37)