Who Knew I Wanted a Baseball Uniform?

I love all these striped wools ... I would use them for upholstery. There is nothing better than a woven stripe.



I'm not sure where I found these, but I wish I had them myself.

False Mustaches & Butt Jokes, or Why I Still Laugh at Humor Fit for Five Year Olds

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading The Year in Pictures, and I spied this photo by Lartigue of some wicked little children.



I was immediately reminded of a couple of photos I saw in Denmark (and loved) by Olaf Breuning:





You can't tell me you didn't smile ...

Duckie, What Were You Thinking?

Guess I'm on a John Hughes kick.

Alright, guys. I've gotten over being upset about the whole being jilted thing, really I have. But what I want to know is why?



Why would Duckie, the only cool person in Pretty in Pink, care at all about the whiny, lame and boring Andie? Duckie got the short end of the stick, but in a way he was asking for it with such low standards.



Andie, schmandy ... you don't need that wet blanket. All of the cool things you do for her, and she chooses the loser who shows up late, breaks off their date to the prom and dresses like a low-level office employee.



It's really not worth being upset about, but I'll forgive you for moping, because you look so charming when you're sad.

Sartorialist Dad

A few years ago, I found this picture of my dad in London, circa 1987, and was struck with it's resemblance to a Scott Schuman picture for Sartorialist. Aren't those moccs great? I used that messenger bag the last two years of high school, and my brother still runs around with it.

I never thought of my dad as particularly stylish, but he looks pretty awesome here. Go dad!

Movie Night, Anyone? John Hughes and the Homestead

This is about the time of year I usually return to Chicago, but this year it's not working out. Just like Thanksgiving, I'll miss about a million little traditions, but the one I'll miss the most is the annual trip to the Art Institute to see what's up, with my family and the Vaughans & Terminis, who are two families I have known since birth. The Art Institute is like another family member; I took art classes there as a kid, went at least once a week when I was in High School (it was on the way home) ... it's where I learned about anatomy, ahem.

But if I can't go with my usual companions, maybe John Hughes and Ferris Bueller will do:



I've watched this like a million times (it reminds me so much of my own time at the Art Institute). But it was only this last time that I realized it's set to a weird arrangements of one of my favorite songs, Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want, by The Smiths:



I always thought it would make a good Christmas song; what do you think? Sung by a chorus of beseeching children?

Anna Lynett is Blowing Up! On Project Runway, That Is.

That's right, folks, the darling Anna Lynett is going global. She will entrance us with more of her beautiful work, beginning this January on the latest season of Project Runway. This secret has been burning a hole in my pocket, and I'm thoroughly glad to let it out! Her profile on the Project Runway website is here.



Oh Anna, I'll forgive you all the upcoming fame, if only you promise you'll still carry my head around on your shoulder, alla Salome e Santo Giovanni. If you have Anna-Mania, as I clearly do, you can find more on her brand-spanking new website: address forthcoming.

Honest Scrap Award: 10 Things I Like About Me

Thank God for Affirmative Action! The lovely blog Passage Paradis has kindly awarded me the coveted Honest Scrap Award, in a blog roll composed solely of guys. I'm in great company. Let's hear it for the boys! The idea is that I now reveal 10 things about myself.

Now, on to the solipsism:

1. I love the word scrap, and by extension the word scrappy, which best describes one of the great loves of my life, the late Matthias.



This incomparable beast was all of the best parts of my childhood put together. Matthias my love, if you're not in heaven when I get there, it's not worth the wait.

2. I don't like Venice (blasphemy!). Sure it's pretty, but so are parts of Trenton. I need more. However, I love being there for one reason: the Vaporetto.



I adore ferries of all sorts, and a city that requires them -- count me in. The further from Venice the city, the better! This was in the middle of nowhere, on the way to Burano:



3. I can cook:



I just don't, because darling Steven does it for me.

4. Speaking of, here's Steven. I adore him:



Without him I wouldn't file taxes, and probably would be living on the sidewalk in a Cornell box ... he gives me love and normalcy and emeralds.

5. Ah, Cornell boxes.



I'm terrible in museums. No pictures? Are you serious? Not bloody likely ... on the other hand, I will yell at people who use flash.

6. I was married once. It was a very, very short marriage. I'll tell you more about it sometime. We honeymooned here, in the Middle Atlas Mountains:



7. I'm full of wind. One rant after another ... commentary, criticism, commentary. This is why blogging is very good for me, because it allows me to keep it in check in real life. Like, lately picket fences have been driving me batty. I mean, if you must, why not at least spice it up?



Now you have no excuse. Picket-fence-builders -- take note.

8. I'm out of work! I'm one of those people you read about in the New York Times who got their masters in June '09. RISD, Interior Architecture. But I'm trying to look at it as semi-positive ... I've had a lot more time to develop design ideas that I didn't have time to explore before. I have a couple of ideas brewing, including a line of light fixtures, developed with a dear friend in LA. More about that in the future. I don't have the heart to add a lighthearted picture to this one.

9. My entire childhood I was certain that I would die before the age of 25. Absolutely positive. It just seemed inevitable ... I attribute this fixation to early overexposure to Victorian literature and growing up in a gay neighborhood during the tail end of the AIDS crisis.

This may be why I respond so strongly to images of death and dying, and immediately fell in love with this fetching consumptive in the Musée d'Orsay:



Possibly he is only napping, a pastime I greatly enjoy.

10A. If I could look at anything all day it would be this ... the sky framed in cypress:



In my old age, I would like to retire to a cypress grove, to chew grass and look to the heavens. Also, people will come visit me. I will have many blankets so you can lay comfortably on the grass next to me.

10B. I think I may have left part of my heart in this walled garden, but I called the next day and they hadn't found anything.



I guess I'll have to go back to Portugal and look myself.

Gigi Gatewood Makes ...

... arresting photographs. See for yourself:





Her work always impresses me with it's cool appraisal of things that personify such large issues -- burial or descent, faith.



And others speak to heavenly bodies, Platonic ideals and shapes, and the passage of time. Yikes, that's a lot! But somehow in her hands it seems so light.









I had the great pleasure to include her work in a show I co-curated in the Gelman Gallery at the RISD Museum. I could look at her work for hours, and am pulled in every time I see them. I think of her as one of the few living classicists.

For more extraordinary work, go here.