"It was restoring a mysterious world the didn't exist anymore, or never existed, but inspired a mood about dressing and desire." -Ralph Lauren

With one week until the official start of spring, my mind is primarily preoccupied by reinvention and renewal. March is a transitional month in meteorological terms - but also a month that hopefully brings transitions within. It is a good time to re-appreciate and reevaluate your ideals, and your identity.

That's why I'm spending this tempestuous evening with Ralph Lauren's hardcover cv and listening to the Clientele's Bonfires on the Heath. Good mellow retrospection.

Heavy Weather

Jake Davis Test Shots: Tanya Romero from Jake Davis on Vimeo.

Under the weather - LA

A Fresh Breeze

From the Tate collection - A Fresh Breeze by JMW Turner.

Self-Help

Q:Have you noticed all these new nonfiction books on “happiness”?
A:It’s an industry. It’s really frightening. People need to read a book on how to be happy? It’s completely an American thing. Can you imagine people in Naples sitting on a bus or in a trattoria reading a book about happiness?

The above quote, from an interview between Mr. Charles Simic, former Poet Laureate of the United States, and Deborah Solomon for the NYTimes magazine.

We Eastern elitists are brought up to seek out meaning and purpose through education. To an increasingly degree (and I find this spiriting), the scientific method and the trappings of academic investigation are being used to analyze ennui and perceived personal failings. Decried by Simic, these new nonfiction books are setting out, in unromantic terms, pathways and practices that carry the promise of socially sanctioned states of success (pardon the alliteration). Focus and discipline are two qualities that are lacking in many people’s lives (myself included) – in my experience, discipline (in the form of social prohibitions and punishments) and focus (in the form of a lack of social mobility) are at a premium in European countries like Italy.

On average, Italians work 250 hours less per anum than their American counterparts. Why is this? In my opinion, those extra 250 hours represent the presence of a uniquely American insecurity – one derived from our unparalleled psychological independence. To a large degree, our success or failure is entirely predicated upon effort and education. Which is why we anxiously poor over nonfiction books which promise a better Way – and why we will never be content.

Thank God for that.

When a young blogger's fancy turns to love...

Ah springtime - a time for men to slough of the winter's accumulated ill-will, and robe themselves in pastel and khaki resplendence.
That wasps nest in Botticelli's Venus and Mars (see it there to the right of Mars' head) is most likely an homage to the Vespucci (derived from vespa, the Italian word for wasp) family whose patronage made this work possible. The theme is clearly that love, in this case personified in Venus (but you knew that already), has the power to temper the warrior's wrath. though it seems more likely it was the influence of Bacchus that brought about Mars' rather undignified sleep. Similarly, if we are to believe that Mars sleeps on account of love - he has dropped his guard with his head next to a wasps nest (here most closely representative of patronage/money - now what, pray tell, does that say about love?).
In any event - the sun is shining so satyrs be damned.

blackest black tie

A cadaverous cocktail party set in the severed vein of gothic horror. We'll wake the dead and warm the crypt-like cold of my new haunts, 14 Liberty Avenue. Poe-like potables, Lovecraftian liquors, as well as victimized victuals - by the time we leave, many of our braincells will have joined the hordes of the undead. Come hungry for brains, or appetizers if so inclined. We will start early and likely shamble off elsewhere in search of warm flesh.

-LA

Today I had to pick up a woman at the train station. As I arrived I saw that she had a shock of purple hair, matching stockings, which all seemed to fit with what I already knew her email address to be: mistressx69. Turns out her boyfriend, having spent a significant time in HP Lovecraft's home state of Rhode Island, designs and builds small sculptures of Cthulu (he is presently working on a red one that lights up - his "lava Cthulu"). I wish I could have a few cocktails and a conversation with that couple.

The Vineyard

I've been back in the Republic for a week now and I'm starting to get the shakes. I need to get my creative juices flowing again, or at least get drunk and throw high powered explosives at the neighbors. Thankfully there's a state sanctioned holiday coming up for said purposes. Perhaps not the neighbors - but I'm sure I can find some police cruisers to shoot bottle rockets at.
I'll just drop my R's off in Boston and go to the Vineyard acting like a Kennedy.