A good sign: clear skies, a great weekend ahead full of birthday festivities.
Sartorial Cacophony
9 Jul
These guys are trouble. Their line of (among many things) cowboy button-ups, turquoise three piece suits and fuschia underwear was represented by the L.A. showroom I once worked at. Currently, they are in L.A. to attend the opening of their flagship store on Robertson Boulevard. They are hilarious, good humored, goofy and crazy as you’d expect from men who wear pink tuxedos and rainbow socks. In order they are: Peder, Stefan and Simon – who once serenaded me at a party and kept asking if I’d like to go to Norway. Above you’ll find a link for their blog which, if not for the commentary, check out for the photos. There’s always a conspicuous limo, yacht or tractor in the background; usually in blue, pink or gold (their primary colors). In my experience, all their endeavors are excessive, outrageous and extraordinary; if you ever wind up in the middle of the pandemonium, just sit back and enjoy the ride.
The Leading Victim
7 Jul
Joseph Rubinstein is hovering over my body. As my eyes gloss over and my body goes limp – my arms cradling a chainsaw – I’m aware that my Sister is lying next to me and I’m being covered in filmy plastic. But for Rubinstein, I’ll play dead any day.
My Sister brought me to tonight’s reception to see a man by the name of Joseph Rubenstein open his first Los Angeles show at a Gallery called Integrated Circus, a multimedia showroom for (as the owners Loni and Viktor say) “anything we happen to like.” It is only their second gallery reception. Joe is a photographer, whose recent contemplation of our relationship to death brought him to tonight’s offerings: a handful of saturated photographs of murdered and bloody young, beautiful women. Though the deaths are artificial and cosmetic, they could come out of any crime drama.
Photography with either a camera or phone is prohibited at this exhibition, so I’m allowed only a picture of the front of the gallery but here’s the point of tonight’s artwork:
“Death in our culture has morphed from a sacred or at least natural part of life to become the most sensationalized part of our everyday story telling. Crime Dramas like “CSI” focus so much on the prevention of the “Next Victim” that they forget to slow down and understand the initial exchange that is driving the story. The original victim’s body is fragmented and turned into factors in an equation. The human cost is largely ignored, and because of it we, the audience, develop a build up of these deaths that we know so much about, but have never really stopped to look at. I am offering a chance to stand and stare at a fictionalized death. The images I create are beautification, idealization, creative interpretations of death the same way CSI is an idealization of the criminologists. By creating the fantasy of it, I am giving the viewer emotional license to look at the body and try to see themselves in it. In photos of real death we feel too perverse, too indignant to explore them. It becomes very difficult to integrate those photos into the collection of stories in our minds. My goal is to create images that help us understand these stories, and maybe their relationship to ourselves.”
NaBloPoMo in July
7 JulWordPress released an announcement to advertise NaBloPoMo ’09, which is National Blog Posting Month 2009 – July. Although it looks like almost every month of the year is a month that a blogger can publicly committ to post something everyday for a month, I’ve chosen this month, July, my birthday month, and one of the hottest of the summer to post everyday. For your pleasure, for my pleasure, I’m posting. There’s a theme too – Routine. Though nothing seems to truly be a routine around Los Angeles, and in particular Hollywood, I’ll do what I’ve been doing – trying to show you around, trying to show you the best and the mundane; because both can be surprisingly amusing.
If you’ve been reading, I hope you’ve enjoyed the photos and the commentary and if not, let me know what you want to see. It’s been a while since I’ve been on the outside of the glass and things tend to muddle once you’re in the center.
Happy reading!! xo.
NO SAINTS IN L.A. 