My Principality

June 1st, 2010

a little piece of heaven

My Elementary School Journal Entry from October 27, 1993.

When I grow up, I want to be a writer and write children’s books and musical plays. I would make up songs and choreograph dances for the play. In the summer, I would live in the country in a small yellow house with white shudders on the windows and a bright white front door. In the back there would be a stable full of pretty horses. There would also be a big pool and a dance room connected to the house. In the winter, I would go in to Chicago and New York to perform the plays.

Nearly seventeen years after I wrote this journal entry, I’ve found the architects for the country dream house: Backen, Gillam, & Kroeger. And thanks remodelista.com for their introduction.

May 17th, 2010

Isabella Huffington Art Exhibit

Did you ever itch to take creative license with your high school bedroom? I had a lovely room with buttercup walls and white plantation shutters. Nevertheless, I dreamt of painting my bedroom walls black and hanging black and white photos. My conservative/sane parents said NO, as concerned for my mental health as for the house’s resale value. I think the wildest I ever got was using scotch tape (quelle horreur!) to adhere Marilyn Monroe postcards to the walls.

ISABELLA HUFFINGTON has elevated high school bedroom collage into high art. And while Arianna Huffington would frown on a bunch of strangers moving into her college-bound daughter’s bedroom, we can get our fix by admiring these impressive mixed media prints.

The young artist held her first exhibit at the William Turner Gallery in Bergamot Station this past Sunday. By the time Queen Bee left, every piece had sold. I like to think of her sharpie on poster board works as postmodern pointillist pop. See more here: isabellahuffington.com

May 10th, 2010

Missoni Color Therapy

Los Angeles. [image: Henri Matisse: Open Window]
What is it about Italians that make the rest of us feel like we aren’t really tasting, seeing, experiencing what is around us? Is there something in Italian water that makes them experience the IMAX 3-D version of life? I tried to crack the case this past Friday at the Legends of La Cienega 2010 design celebration.

Wanda Jelmini, the creative director of Missoni Home, flew in from Italy to speak on the La Dolce Vita panel. It is no surprise that Wanda Jelmini lives for color; as the niece of Rosita Missoni, color obsession is in her DNA.
Wanda Jelmini’s Favorite Color: White. She needs to start every season with a clean slate to make herself open for new inspiration. Plus, white is the union of all colors.
Most Influential Artist: Matisse. When she stands in front of Matisse’s work, she says, “[…]another side of my color vibration is claimed.”
Wanda’s Color Therapy: She prescribes healing with color. If someone comes into her office and doesn’t feel right, she will prescribe a color for the person to wear the next day. And she swears they feel better. Queen Bee suspects the remedy is as much about “the patient” being in the presence of such a vibrant, contagiously enthusiastic woman as it is about her color recommendation.

Here are some Missoni Gateway Drugs to satiate us until we can afford to upholster our St. Tropez yachts in Missoni fabric.

[Missoni Converse Sneakers:contact Beverly Hills store. Abbie Woven Tunic . Woven Faux-Leather Bracelet]

May 7th, 2010

Town Gossip: cultured cousin is cheating on kindle with ipad

Meet Chelsey and Kelsey.
Experts in all things important. To them.
Winners of the Best Mobisode Award at the 2009 ITVFest.

Where does your allegiance lie: Kindle? Ipad? Nook?

April 30th, 2010

the menagerie

I spent the majority of my childhood conversing with animals. While my ancient babysitter Ruby watched her stories, I dressed my stubby Welsh Corgis in drag and danced with my Golden Retriever. I didn’t have siblings to boss around, so when the dogs tired, I held court over a ragamuffin menagerie of stuffed animals. I appointed Janie-the-Rabbit in charge while I was away at my father’s. She wore a wrinkled nightgown and was missing an eye. I had taken her in after she had escaped from an asylum.

My elementary school was five blocks from home. On three occasions in third grade, I found my Welsh Corgis racing around the playground. They scheduled their visits according to my recess time. My classmates treated me like a celebrity when this happened, but the school faculty was appalled. After recess, my prickly teacher lined up my class and pumped soap into our hands. Who knows what the children could catch from those mangy, conniving dogs. And then, I’d spend a good hour in the assistant principal’s office with panting Cowboy and Rugby stinking up the place. My wary mother would arrive in her Talbot’s suit and haul them off. A year later, I found my majestic Golden Retriever sitting at the busy cross walk waiting to escort me home. My mother really should have invested in a better backyard fence.

Every summer, I visited my grandparents in northern Michigan. Most afternoons I could find Willy the chipmunk hiding near the old-fashioned water pump. If I put my palm out with peanuts, he’d stuff as many as he could in his cheeks and scurry off to the wood shed. There, I presumed, he would present them to his lady friend Willameena who would swoon over her suitor’s generosity. One August day, my grandmother announced we would have a tea party. All the stuffed animals were in attendance. It was a wonderful fete hosted on the deck looking out at the lake. Town & Country should have covered it. One-eyed Janie was the belle of the ball.

[artwork by amber alexander. prints may be purchased here.]

April 29th, 2010

The Omnibus Gallery in Aspen is one of the most dangerous places into which you could wander. As you stand in front of the original Toulouse-Lautrec’s Moulin Rouge poster from 1891, you sheepishly recall the $16 knock off you hung in your college dorm room. You promise to never buy art at Linens-N-Things again. And then, before you know it, another vintage poster captures your imagination. You convince yourself that you should invest in this work. It seems reasonable for you to take out a second mortgage to buy a poster that is larger than your living room wall; I speak from experience. (That is a hyperbole). And since Aspen can be a pain in the ass to get to, The Omnibus Gallery has a wonderful site so that you may fantasize from home. The Omnibus Gallery

April 28th, 2010

It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood

A perfect gift option for the graduate in your life. Looks great in dorm rooms, first apartments, or fancy homes. Only downside: no Texas cities yet. Support this Chicago based two person company. Find your city here: Ork Posters [$22 - $27]

April 22nd, 2010

Sylvia Beach: One Bad Ass Bibliophile

Paris. Welcome to 12 Rue de L’Odeon: The Shakespeare & Co. Bookshop. Good day, Sylvia. Who are you looking at over there? Oh, is that your lover Adrienne waving to you from her french bookshop across the street? Is it alright if I bring my friends in to show them around? Wonderful. Hello, Mr. Joyce. How’s your eyesight? Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I like your bow tie. Now, everybody watch your step. Isn’t it cozy in here? Along with the classics, Sylvia has collected all of the current literary journals and novels fresh off the press. If you don’t have the money to buy them, don’t worry, she’ll let you borrow. And if you ever find yourself without a bed, there’s a cot in back. Think of Sylvia as the patron saint of expat writers. Shakespeare & Co. is a home away from home.

Between the time Shakespeare & Co. opened in 1919 and closed during the German occupation, Sylvia’s little bookshop had become the American literary hotspot of the world. Ernest Hemingway: check. F. Scott Fitzgerald: check. Thornton Wilder: yep. Ezra Pound: duh. I paid homage to 12 Rue de L’Odeon many summers ago. Despite all the stories these walls could tell, the only thing signifying the bookshop ever existed is a little plaque: En 1922, dans cette maison, Mlle. Sylvia Beach publia ULYSSES de James Joyce. Sylvia, you were the only one with the brains and balls to publish the so-called smut (or most important novel of the 20th century), even though it nearly bankrupted you. Civilization thanks you.

The Letters of Sylvia Beach are now on bookshelves. NYT Review. April 18, 2010.

Also, of note: Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation, by Noel Riley Fitch

April 20th, 2010

Kiss and Tell: Street Art

I was lucky enough to see this film after an agent friend promised “you won’t regret it” in his adorable agenty way and bought tickets. It was incredibly entertaining; I didn’t doze off once despite the bottle of white wine I had bathed in at a friend’s pool that afternoon.
I confess to know very little about the nefarious underworld of street art. I had only heard of Shepard Fairey (the artist of the iconic Obama face) because my friends are friends of his and have his art on their walls (thus making me only two degrees of separation from street art awesomeness). The only other personal knowledge I have about the subject, besides watching Gangland and the opening sequence of West Side Story, is that my first kiss (circa ‘98) was with a graffiti artist in a polo shirt. And no, I didn’t carry his spray cans in my backpack and keep a look out. We were sitting on a couch at a friend’s house while my friend and her boyfriend abandoned us to go listen to the Rent soundtrack. I slowly flipped through a Delia’s teen fashion catalog, seemingly engrossed in the fashion horoscopes, until I hit the last page and there was nothing left I could do but let him kiss me. Poor guy. It had to have been the worst kiss of his life. Apologies, Mr. G., if you ever read this.
Back to Banksy: The big drama with Exit Through the Gift Shop is whether or not it is a documentary or a fictionalized manipulation by the street artist known for pranks.

My vote: it’s fiction. But, I also don’t really care. I laughed a lot. And I got to see a lot of amazing images. And for a couple of hours in the darkened arclight theatre, I got to feel like I was cool enough to be privy to Banksy’s world, real or imagined.

Reading List:

Banksy Puzzles The New York Times. April 13th.

Shepard Fairey Swears to God the Banksy Movie is not a Hoax: Vanity Fair. April 16th.

Banksy Makes A Documentary, Art World Still Confused Huffington Post. April 19th.

April 20th, 2010

Artist’s Statement

[photo: a journal sold in the arclight gift shop]

What if hardly anybody reads this blog? If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it…If I started any project thinking, “What if no one sees this? What will be the point?” I’d stay in bed, for like a year. On a larger scale, if we all thought this way, grass roots organizations would shutter, plays would cease rehearsing, and starting out directors would hang themselves in the editing bay; in short, inspiration would curl up and die…awesome.

Don’t ya think blogs are a tad narcissistic? The title “My Principality” suggests a little more than a tad of narcissism. This is my universe. Hello. But I don’t pretend to think I know the coolest or the best. I’m not an arbiter of taste. And only Ira Glass knows everything. I just get super excited about things around me and I like to share.

So what is the Big Idea? The Concept? I don’t understand.

[Life is] a constellation of vivid moments, like the stars in the universe, ephemera, and eternal, and not some reductionist little narrative… Charles Mee In Los Angeles, everything seems to be distilled down to a reductionist little narrative. In screenwriting, the inciting incident happens on page ten, act two starts on page twenty-two, and the whole shebang should be wrapped up by page one hundred and ten. In screen acting, an actress’ voice, mannerisms, and inner thoughts should fit the archetype her outer appearance suggests, again her reductionist little narrative. [In case you were wondering, I’m: If Reese Witherspoon and Sarah Paulson had a love child raised by Courtney Thorne-Smith]. Maybe it’s Hollywood’s fault that we feel like life should also be paint by numbers formulaic. I should get married by x year, make babies by x+3 years, etc. Thank goodness, life doesn’t follow a streamlined trajectory or it’d be boring as hell. Instead, if we give ourselves permission, we can sprint and then wander, get lost, and then decide on a different path, get hit by a bus, and then take a scooter. This blog is a collage of stories, objects, and images I am drawn to. The concept is: there is no concept, critic.

Aren’t you nervous about strangers reading?

It does feel a little like leaving a journal at a bus stop. But until I stop feeling naked, I’ll keep reminding myself of this quote by Anne Lammot: I decided that the most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed.

Cheers to the subversive and revolutionary!

Queen Bee

April 16th, 2010

CAFE BUZZ: Union Jack Pizzaz

Why should the expats in Paris have all the fun? I stumbled upon Larchmont Larder the other day. It’s as cute as a button, a button quail that is. I’m especially excited about their catered Humpday Dinner Menu. Our next dinner party will have to be scheduled on a Wednesday. As we all know, I suck in the kitchen, but I’m pretty good at presentation.

[credit: picture Estate Braissai-RMN]

CAFE READ: Walks in Hemingway’s Paris: A Guide to Paris for the Literary Traveler, by Noel R. Fitch. I was lucky enough to take an “Expatriate Writers” course from Professor Fitch at the American University in Paris. Wandering the haunts she lists in this book was the best time of my life. Four Stars.