Guy Fawkes Masks

It’s November 5th, So Where’s the Revolution?

Since I can remember, I’ve preferred the fifth of November, a.k.a. Guy Fawkes Day, to Halloween. It was a secret I kept close because it’s a perverse preference; it goes against what everyone else likes, and most Americans have no idea what it is, anyway. It’s also a rather plebian celebration, a cause for British working-class hooligans to misapply the name of anarchy and burn stuff and torture cats… there are always horrible tales of cat torture, usually with firecrackers.

The similarly themed American Independence Day has never held any interest for me. Yes, it celebrates a worthy revolution

Greta Gerwig by Alexandra Molotkow

REVIEW: References to Things Past in ‘Frances Ha’

A side perk of going to see sneak previews at the Arclight Hollywood is the audience that a particular film will attract, a group that is willing to catch it so late at night before it officially opens. Last week at The Great Gatsby, for instance, it was girls and gheys in Jazz Age costume, many of who clapped and cooed when Leonardo Di Caprio first spun around and faced the camera with that Titanic smile. Last night at Noah Baumach’s Frances Ha I was seated in front of a half row of hipsters,

Designer Mary McFadden

There’s Nobody Like Mary—Part One

It wasn’t even much of temptation to call this piece There’s Something About Mary because not only would that be cliché, it would be inadequate to describe the force of nature who has been one of my best friends for most of my life at this point.  In honor of the release by Rizzoli of her visual autobiography Mary McFadden by Mary McFadden, I thought I’d allow myself to remember some of those years together, particularly seeing as I worked on a very early iteration of that book twenty years ago, which I called Opus, but Mary didn’t, preferring the simpler “my book” instead.

Maybe at some point I’ll explain why that version of the book was abandoned; it is appropriately dramatic, so much so that perhaps Opus fell short, and Grand Opera would have been more on the mark.  But the collapse of that project was quite a few years after the beginning of our relationship.  I’m certainly glad it has finally seen the light, and apparently been given the full Rizzoli treatment worthy of one of our National Living Treasures.

Priscilla, McQueen of the Metropolitan

TUTTLE MODE | REVIEW

Gentle reader,

Scott and I just got back from New York and, holy shit, it was hot out there!  When you add the humidity to the record-breaking high temperatures, it could have made for some pretty sticky fashion moments.  Luckily, one of our New York polo gays had tipped me off about the impending heat wave in time for me to switch out the Balmain rocker look I’d planned to pack for a cooler, crisper Hamptons-style wardrobe.   Skinny jeans and lace-up boots at 103 degrees?  I don’t fucking think so.

What I really should have been wearing in NYC

Now, I know that we usually share some good times over a quality television show or two but there was no time this last week for watching anything except a couple of late night episodes of Chelsea Lately and, after the kinds of late nights I was having, I don’t really remember too much about those.  We have other eye-opening stuff to chat about, though, so not to worry.