MODernist.

"You have to be a Mod or a Rocker to mean anything," 

interview with a Mod girl in The Daily Mirror, 1964.

vintage geoffrey beene dress

vintage mr. john jr. hat

simply vera red tights
vintage watches
old tiffany & co. braclets
key from my first apartment
random rings (old)

i dig moDIGliani.

Late in 1919, in a squalid Paris studio strewn with wine bottles, Amedeo Modigliani painted a wistful portrait of his 21-year-old lover, Jeanne Hébuterne. Afew months later, on January 24, 1920, the impoverished artist died of tubercular meningitis at age 35. The following evening, Hébuterne, eight months’ pregnant with their second child, leapt to her death from a fifth-story window.

In Italy as a young man, he enrolled in art schools in Livorno, Florence and Venice, where he dutifully studied academic painting and life drawing.  His own ambitions would take him to France. “As an artist,” Modigliani liked to say, quoting Nietzsche, “a man has no home in Europe save in Paris.”  In Paris, he discovered the work of Renoir, Degas, Gauguin and, among the younger, more radical set, Matisse and Picasso.

modigliani1 by sayhellotomylittleblog featuring bracelets & bangles

 

Modigliani quickly assumed the pose of the flamboyant bohemian: he frequented the artist hangouts of Montmartre and later Montparnasse, wore a bright silk scarf knotted around his neck in place of a cravat or tie and answered to the nickname Modi, a pun on peintre maudit (accursed painter).

Most of the painters who made names for themselves in the early 20th century took part in new movements with their own theories and manifestoes: Fauvism, Futurism and the like. Modigliani has been an anomaly as his work doesn’t fit into the standard art-historical categories like Expressionism or Cubism. Not to paint any still lifes and to be so exclusively focused on portraiture was very unusual, if not unique, in his time. But Modigliani was happy to stand apart.

modigliani2 by sayhellotomylittleblog featuring a little black dress

His funeral was attended by a Who’s Who of the Paris art world: Picasso, Léger, Derain, Brancusi and hundreds more. In the funeral procession mourners reported being approached by dealers eager to buy Modigliani paintings. Galleries with his work in stock raised their prices tenfold; purchasers marked them up tenfold again. Forgeries flooded the market.

Textual Healing.

I have found something equally ingratiating and alienating about blogging.  We look at each others pictures, read each others stories, comment, reply, and have a dialogue.  We do not know each other and modern forms of communication can be quite strange.  

Text messaging is now the most popular form of daily communication, making face-to-face and telephone conversations less and less frequent.  This Forbes article is pretty interesting namely in the reiteration of mis-communications of content and misinterpretations of tone.  The verdict there? Texting sacrifices the quality of communication for the speed and efficacy of progress.

While I agree that a hand written letter and a thoughtful phone call are delightful, I also think texting is kind of amazing and when used properly allows you to say ridiculous, potentially incriminating, and cringe-worthy things with a relatively low degree of judgment.

Left: sharing a mutual admiration for red wine, slow-braised brisket, Andy Cohen and New York Jewishness   

Right: the moment we realized jay-z was working on the Gatsby score and remembered the poetry intro on the 2001 unplugged show with the roots.

Left: there is nothing wrong with meeting for drinks at noon (it was a weekday for the record) and developing a hooker/madam scenario to gingerly play out upon entry.

Right: brutally honest description of intentions regarding sexual encounters are met without facial reactions and thus way less guilt and humiliation

Left: sending a delayed response to a text because you were in fact more lazy and pathetic than the senders own concern for their general uselessness.

Right: celebratory and giddy use of Emojis (panda, gun, present) and Tim Gunn-ing it when there is not an appropriately descriptive image.

Left: Strongly worded and succinct directives regarding the Vindaloo incident of 2011 or other in home culinary adventures.

Right: Image supported boasting and pop culture references as well as developing a thesaurus for the boasting and the pop culture references e.g. Bridesmaids = "movie about cupcakes."

Seriously, 

I dare you.

If it's Gray outside, wear Gray and stay inside.

This post started about love as a nod to the love bird ways of Feb and Ruary sittin' in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g but ultimately it got a little dark (that's just my way) and then settled in at a literary-based gray (also my way).  Here goes:

"I'm planning on writing an article that exposes all my vulnerabilities to the entire internet" Lena Dunham, GIRLS [I continue to be more invested in that program than one should be.] 

 

“They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered" F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise. [I have sent myself post cards from everywhere I have been the past five years an idea I stole from my Jessica's boyfriend]

"Sittin' here resting my bones and this loneliness won't leave me alone, It's two thousand miles I roamed, just to make this dock my home." Otis Redding, Sitting By The Dock of the Bay.  [I have never stuck around to spend the summer here, though I have spent time here every summer]

"She knew all the really right people, she went to Le Jardin. She danced with Picasso's illegitimate mistress and wore Kenneth Lane jewels (really it's trash)." Lou Reed, Sally Can't Dance  [Actually, my boyfriend got me this stuff from a flea market in Barcelona last week]

"But grass grows there, and rust upon the hinge; and they are lonely that must keep the watch.” William Butler Yeats [Kind of a downer, I know, but I have always romanticized the devolution of things not properly cared for]

"Why one man rather than another? It was odd. You find yourself involved with a fellow for life just because he was the one that you met when you were nineteen. Simone de Beauvoir [Well thank god that wasn't true in my case or I would be under educated, eating beans out of a can and living off the grid]

"The post office has a great charm at one point of our lives.  When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going through the rain for." Jane Austen [P.S. Today was that day.  The one cent stamp, seriously?]

"I'm gonna paint my picture, paint myself in blue and red and black and gray. All of the beautiful colors are very, very meaningful.  Yeah, well you know, gray is my favorite color, I felt so symbolic yesterday"  Adam Duritz, Counting Crows  [If you knew me, you would also know that I have been to no less than 20-ish of the above-mentioned concerts.  Creeper.]

"Books could be an incredible adventure.  I stayed under my blanket and barely moved, and no one would have guessed how my  mind raced and my heart soared with stories" Paula McLain, The Paris Wife.  [I have been to Paris many times but really only care for the Paris of 1880-1950]

"To me, grey is the welcome and only possible equivalent for indifference, non-commitment  absence of opinion, absence of shape. But grey, like formlessness and the rest, can be real only as an idea, and so all I can do is create a colour nuance that means grey but is not it." Gerhard Richter, letter to Edy de Wilde, 23 February 1975. 

Just another Mani Monday.

Chanel Graphite (two coats)

Sally Hanson Gem Crush in Glitz Gal (three coats)

Graphite.  soft native carbon, occurring in black to dark-gray foliated masses, with metallic luster and greasy feel.

Glitz.  ostentatious glitter or sophistication.

Weekend Warrior.

Before my amazing (read: be jealous) Bridal Shower at Lady Mendl's Tea Salon yesterday (more on that later) the rest of this pretty cool stuff happened too.  So glad to spend the weekend with family  and friends living a pretty magical life.  

Friday night dinner in Soho.

they got drunk and she walked off.

carefully committing to a color palette.

bunko pillow case party.

they went to a bar and she got drunk.

then she joined the kgb.

Public Saturday Announcement, Take 2.

Remember all the way back to last week when I started this amazing PSA series?  I sure do, but then again I have a lot of free time and take detailed notes.  This series was inspired by a bunch of articles concluding that PSA's are basically ineffective.  Let us take a look for ourselves:

What this PSA thinks it says:  Whether or not you speak English properly it is important to have uninterrupted meals of meat, fish, carrots, peas, fruit and milk in that order to sustain protien, strength, vitamins, energy, and good bones and teeth.  Ultimately this process will yield strong lung capacity resulting from whistle-use and a sensible cookie reward.

What this PSA really says:
1.  Having a four-course lunch is completely unrelated to childhood obesity in America.

2.  So long as you are eating healthily, abominable table manners are irrelevant.
3.  A cloche pour assiette makes a rape whistle way less rapey.

4.  If you drink milk you will have good teeth, whether or not you in fact have teeth at all.

5.  Follow the rules and you can have a dumptruck full of cookies.