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Getting married in a Norma Kamali number

                                                                                 One day.

I'm obsessed with The XX's new album

I have an overactive imagination. When I was a child, I used to draw constantly, and my favorite things to draw were African animals—none of which I'd ever actually seen—and glamorous adult clothes. Along with my little sister, I drew page after page of Chanel-like power suits, with broad shoulders and brass buttons in vibrant hues. This was the late 1980s and early 90s, so there was probably a lot of footage of Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher on Australian television. Anyway, I grew up thinking I'd become a lawyer, or a successful fashion designer, and that I'd rock a power suit in neon pink or cobalt blue. I never did, but this 10 Crosby Derek Lam suit may just make it's way into my life before I forget about my drawings. 

“It takes a very long time to become young."

                                                

Your love gets me through the day

It's my new insignia

You really should listen to this

                                                                            Twerps: He's In Stock

Narciso Rodriguez Spring 2013

I've always been a huge devotee of black and white, and most of my clothes are black, white, or a combination of the two. This year,  I've started adding splashes of bright red to my look, generally via my fingers and toes, but also through the occasional slick of MAC's Ruby Woo or by donning a fabulously glitzy pair of dangly red earrings I bought at Target in the Bronx (my first visit to the borough to cover the launch of Jason Wu's designer collaboration for work). The other day, I bought a tomato red open-weave cotton sweater from a man with a rack hoisted on the side of East 86th St. It was $3.99, and perfect for fall evenings. Now I want to find some Dorothy-like ruby red shoes, and a red bucket handbag from Loeffler Randall's new collection. I don't know why it's taken me until age 29 to feel confident enough to embrace sexy red, but it has and I most certainly have.

I wanna go to Jamaica

He's right

"I’m sure [being black] makes me more determined in assuring that everybody’s getting a fair shot—in the same way that being a father of two daughters makes me want to make sure that every woman is getting equal pay for equal work, ’cause I don’t want my daughters treated differently than somebody else’s sons. By virtue of being African-American, I’m attuned to how throughout this country's history there have been times when folks have been locked out of opportunity, and because of the hard work of people of all races, slowly those doors opened to more and more people. Equal opportunity doesn’t just happen on its own; it happens because we’re vigilant about it. But part of this is not just because we’re African-American—it’s also because Michelle and I were born into pretty modest means. And so I think about my single mom and what it was like to go to school and work at the same time. And I think about Michelle’s dad, who had a disability and was working every day and didn’t have a lot of money to spare. But somehow our parents or grand­parents were able to give us these opportunities partly because they lived in a society that said that was important. And as president, I want to ­affirm that that’s important and reject the idea that if we just reward those at the top, that somehow that’s going to work for everybody—’cause that hasn’t been how America got built." Parade interview with the Obamas.

Chanel fall 2012 make-up

This is what 18-year-old Polish model Monika Jagaciak actually looks like:

But this is what she looks like after Karl Lagerfield got to her and transformed her into an ultra-glam, cat-lady-esque fall vamp:

I think she looks fabulous, but more importantly, she's old enough now to wear, and sell, make-up. Jagaciak was famously rejected by former Australian Vogue editor Kirstie Clements in 2008 because Clements deemed her too young - at age 14 - to be dolled up for the magazine's cover. Clements was, of course, right.

escapism

“So I was saying,” he continues. “It was a beautiful day and I had just been driving through Manhattan, and I saw Margo,” he says, referring to one of the producers of Barack on Broadway, the estimable Margo Lion, winner of no fewer than twenty Tonys. “And I said, you know, I just desperately want to take a walk through Central Park again, and just remember what that feels like. But the problem is, obviously, it’s hard to do now.” He asked Margo Lion for help, he says, and about a week later he received a fake mustache. “And I tried it on and I thought it looked pretty good,” he says, as the crowd laughs. “But when I tested this scheme with the Secret Service, they said it didn’t look good enough. But I kept it,” he adds. “So if a couple years from now you see a guy with big ears and a mustache”—the crowd laughs—“just pretend you don’t know who it is. Just look away”—the crowd laughs harder—“Eating a hot dog, you know.”

The changeling: The content of Obama's character By David Samuels, Harper's Magazine, September 2012.

Ralphy

To read between the lines was easier than to follow the text.

Aussie teens, you be killin' em!

Peter Norman

Was a courageous Melburnian whose stance for racial equality at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games saw him banned from competing in subsequent Olympic Games, because Australia was kinda fucked up and cowardly and racist for a long, long time. Next week, Australian parliament will hopefully rectify this awful injustice by acknowledging his bravery in wearing an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge on the podium in solidarity with Tommie Smith and John Carlos, apologizing to him for failing to send him to the 1972 Munich games,  and belatedly recognize the powerful role he played in furthering racial equality. Pity this will come some six years after the man died. 

I've got Patrick Swayze on my mind

Jersey boy

I wanna cover my face in crystals now

I've become obsessed with lipstick lately.

Opening Ceremony

If I were British and living in America, or American and living in Britain, I would buy these Repetto ballet flats from Opening Ceremony even though they are a $295 novelty fashion item. That's just the kind of girl I am.

I'm addicted

The most delicious drinks that don't contain booze imaginable. Also good for easing tonsillitis. No sugar!

Loveless

10 x 1000 miles away

I'm so far away from you
Pacing up and down my room
Does Jesus only love a man who loses?
I turn on the radio
There's some cat on the saxophone
Laying down a litany of excuses
There's madhouse longing in my baby's eyes
She rubs the lamp between her thighs
And hopes the genie comes out singing
She lives in some forgotten song
And moves like she is zombie-strong
Breathes steady as the pendulum keeps swinging

You better hold on to yourself

Well, cities rust and fall to ruin
Factories close and cars go cruisin'
In around the borders of her vision
She says ooh
As Jesus makes the flowers grow
All around the scene of her collision

You know I would, yes, I would
I would hold on to yourself

In the middle of the night
I try my best to chase outside
The phantoms and the ghosts and fairy-girls
On 1001 nights like these
She mutters open sesame and Ali Baba and his forty thieves
Launch her off the face of the world

You know one day I'll come back and I'd hold on to yourself
To yourself, I'd hold on to yourself

Ooh baby, I'm a 1000 miles away
And I just don't know what to say
Cause Jesus only loves a man who bruises
But darling, we can clearly see
It's all life and fire and lunacy
And excuses and excuses and excuses

Well, you know if I could, I would
I'd lie right down and I'd hold on to yourself
Yeah, I would lie right down and I would hold on to yourself
One day I'll come back to you and I'd hold on to yourself
Yeah, I'm gonna come back, gonna lie down
And I would hold on to yourself
Yeah, to yourself



Nick Cave

hot pink

I love this hot pink lip on Sigrid Agrin at Jil Sander Spring 2011. I'm pretty sure it's the same MAC Viva Glam designed by Nicki Minaj that I bought for this long hot summer of 2012. Watermelon lips! 

nudes

Karlie Kloss at Versace Couture Fall 2012. She's so striking with her nude lips and those bold brows and big blue eyes. 

Scientologists on marriage

“Know that life is stark and often somewhat grim, and tiredness and fret and pain and sickness do beget a state of mind where spring romance is far away and dead.”


Maybe Scientologists do sometimes make sense?

Wolf Kahn

I saw a few Wolf Kahn landscapes at the Smithsonian last weekend when I was in DC. "I'm always trying to get to a danger point in color, where color either becomes too sweet or it becomes too harsh, it becomes too noisy or too quiet, and at that point I still want the picture to be strong, forceful, and the carrier of everything that a painting has to have: contrast, drama, austerity."

Bluebird

There's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.
There's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you? 

Charles Bukowski

Blinky

Whitney Houston - Run To You

But why are women always the ones running to men?

hiatus

"Writing is a fraught activity for everyone, of course, male or female, but women writers seem to have to take stronger measures, make more peculiar psychic arrangements, than men do to activate their imaginations." 

Janet Malcom, 'The Silent Woman' (1995)

HTRK - HA

It's obscenely far away. It's gloomy often. But very good things come from Melbourne.