SOPHOMORE FALL/WINTER 09

My favorite clothing line SOPHOMORE released their new look book. Above, Aurel Schmidt and Rita Ackerman pose in the most amazing-fitting and comfortable Sophomore duds. I'm so excited for the "skater skirt" and "pieced dress" and happy to see their continued shout outs to awesome movies (Hello, Heathers.)

Phrazes for the Young Cover

So classic.

close enough to be your ghost

I've been working non-stop this week, and my brittish list has fallen by the wayside because my iPod is dead.

But in music news important to me, Julian Casablancas was on the August 12 cover of NME. They airbrushed the hell out of his face, but who cares? The man is back.

Of course I prefer him au naturale, like in this photo posted on Oh Someday (Strokes Live Journal forum). His sense of style mixes geek chic with classic rock idol.

I also bought Humbug, the 3rd album by Arctic Monkeys. It's dreamier than their previous efforts (Alex Turner takes a cue from Lou Reed's breathless voice in "Sunday Morning"), but retains the strong, stabilizing drums of Matt Helders and the dark, ominous moods that seemto inspire Turner to write. I love these lads, and my favorite new song so far is "Cornerstone.

I thought I saw you in The Battleship but it was only a lookalike

She was nothing but a vision trick under the warming light

She was close, close enough to be your ghost

But chances turned to toast when I asked her if I could call her your name.

I thought I saw you in The Rusty Hook, huddled up in a wicker chair

I wandered over for a closer look and kissed whoever was sitting there

She was close and she held me very tightly until I asked politely

"Please can I call you her name?"

I elongated my lift home

I let him go the long way round

I smelt your scent on the seat belt and kept my short cuts to myself

I thought I saw you in The Parrot's Beak messing with the smoke alarm

It was too loud for me to hear her speak and she had a broken arm

It was close, so close that the walls were wet

And she wrote it out in Letraset

"No, you can't call me her name."

Tell me where's your hiding place

I'm worried I'll forget your face

I've asked everyone

I'm beginning to think I imagined you all along

I saw your sister in The Cornerstone on the phone to the middle man

When I saw that she was on her own I thought she might understand

She was close, well you couldn't get much closer

She said "I'm really not supposed to but yes, you can call me anything you want."

LOCKE from LOX

DON'T TELL HIM WHAT HE CAN'T DO! I love you Locke.

DEAD TREES @ cake shop

Dead Trees played the Scott Shiffman record release party at Cake Shop because DT bassist Todd Dahlhoff and his bro put out the Shiffman record. Adam Green, Matt Romano, and Wiz Kid rocked the crowd, and the Dead Trees kicked ass as usual. Love them.

Julian for life

Yes, I saw the Dead Trees last night for like the 60th time, but who cares, Julian Casablancas is blowin up the internet with his awesomeness. Check out the newest issue of NME for a 4 page spread and interview with the best songwriter of our time/sexiest/nicest rock star ever. Julian's solo album is gonna descend upon the world like a bomb of peace, love and happiness. Get ready to get naked.

Gimme Shelter

TS Eliot once wrote, "April is the cruelest month," and while I totally agree with him (espcially right around tax deadlines) sometimes I think he picked the wrong month. While the hope associated with Spring can drive you up the wall, sometimes the long slow sticky melting of tar on the black top gives August the trump card.

Our most classic poets, The Rolling Stones, once wrote "See the fire is sweepin our very streets today," and while in 1969 the context was much more politically-charged than it is today when I walk outside in the 90 degree heat of Greenpoint, I feel the Stones wrote this song as a soundtrack for August itself.

War, children, it's just a shot away.

Love, sister, it's just a kiss away.

Fuck or fight. August makes you want to destroy something because it's too hot, there's too much rage at the fact that coldness yawns before us, there are 1/2 naked people all around us, and we just want to "go side, go bashing" or find someone to take us to an air-conditioned 5 x 5 foot space where everything is quiet. In the awesome book Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island, editor Greil Marcus describes "Gimme Shelter" as "the greatest rock and roll recording ever made" because it "both denied shelter and delivered it."

And it's true. In the dead heat of the longest, most ludicrous month of summer, all I wanna do is commit crimes with Mick Jagger and wrap up in his blood-red scarf (from the Maysles Brothers documentary of the same name) and keep him off the stage at Altamont so he doesn't have to see his song become a live-action narrative. The lust that could redeem the heat is overshadowed by grim violence, and shelter becomes not a soft bed but a life-saving necessity. On a infinitely smaller scale "Gimme Shelter" makes me feel like the sweat that drips down my shirt is worth something, if nothing more than the forces that cause poets to write lines and songs that stick in the public consciousness forever.

i love luke rathborne

Luke Rathborne's music (and especially his voice) gives me the chills. He's totally not my style at all (I mean the only singer-songwriter I really dig is ultra-absurd Adam Green) except for the fact that he's pale skin and bones and channels Bob Dylan and Ryan Adams and makes me feel like, really, the world will all one day hide behind long hair and don themselves in tee shirts and somehow be more honest and real and beautiful. (What romantic schlock!)

I wish he wrote the song "Mrs. Jones" for me: "Dear Mrs. Jones/Open the door/I am so young/And you are so bored/We can go slow/Up to the North/Breathe it in slow/Breathe it in more." He played it tonight @ his residency at the Living Room and won me over for life. Catch him for free next Tuesday at 11 PM.

DONALD GET IN ME

Tonight The Virgins played a benefit show for Cinema Nolita with The Beets at Santos. Lox and I attended and I had pretty much the best time I've had all summer.

Donald did NOT disappoint in these pants.

Homeboy knows he's sex on sticks (I think his skinny body is constructed out of zombified matches waiting to BURN) and he's never been afraid to flaunt his goods like a modern day Mick Jagger... But even after seeing his naked package on full display in Ryan McGinley's photos, those telephone pants still tantalize. ("I'm in the phone booth, it's the one across the hall/If you don't answer I'll just ring it off the wall.") And I thought Jack White wore trouser snake enhancers!

And Donald pulled a Ryan Jarman displaying his "Tales From the Crypt Keeper" toenail polish. I don't think he could ever be more perfect than exactly as he is. Just watch the way he moves.

Thanks again, boys, for a fun night of awesomeness.

"I'd watch Chuck Bass and see who I was not."

Read this great article from NYMAG, The Post-Hughes Teenager.

500 days of summer

The Savage Detectives" page 194

"Who knows, Maria, they said. I'd never seen them look so beautiful. I know it sounds silly to say, but they'd never seemed so beautiful, so seductive. Although they weren't trying to be. In fact, they were dirty, who knows how long it'd been since they'd showered, how long since they'd slept, they had circles under their eyes, and they needed to shave (not Ulises, because he never had to shave), but I would've kissed them both, I don't know why I didn't, I would've gone to bed with them both, fucked them until we passed out, then watched them sleep and afterward kept fucking. I thought: if we find a hotel, if we're in a dark room, if we have all the time in the world, if I undress them and they undress me, everything will be all right, my father's madness, the lost car, the sadness and energy I felt and that at moments seemed about to choke me. But I didn't say a word."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIMMY

My baby is 12 years old but still acts like he's 2.

I miss you Tim, I wish I could be with you all the time. You're the best friend anyone could ask for, and I'll always love you the most. Eat some extra catnip today!!

donald craze

from rolling stone via rugby.

donald=belmondo

charlotte ronson's fall 09 campaign takes cues from godard's breathless. nice call.

dreams do come true

http://perezhilton.com/2009-08-06-jason-segel-signs-on-for-an-adventure

was it a megadobber or a bettin pencil?

Definitely MEGADOBBER!

Tonight I finally got to see the Arctic Monkeys at Highline Ballroom. The venue (which I'd never been to before) is comparable to Hiro Ballroom, and it was great to see the boys at such a smallish place instead of APW. Because of work I got there after the opening act Modey Lemon had finished, so my anxiety levels sky-rocketed. I did NOT want to miss one Turner-penned tune or one moment of staring at his arms (sex guns) and long long hair. In the future the entire world, both boys and girls, will roam the planet with their bangs in their eyes and their arms long and smooth and lean in triblend tank tops or thread bare tees.

ANYWAY, they played all my favorites: "Fluorescent Adolescent" (with a heartbreakingly beautiful interlude) "The View From The Afternoon," "Leave Before the Lights Come On," "Only Ones Who Know," "505," and my personal angry/sad anthem "DO ME A FAVOR." They definitely passed the live test with impeccable skills, awesome stage banter ("cake and tea section") overwhelming energy, and sheer awesomeness. It also helped that Arctic Monkeys activist P. "Apples in the Living Room" Diddy showed up with his entourage to pump up the crowd. And everyone at the show truly loved the band.

Here's a little clip of "Leave Before the Lights Come On." Sex Guns, I tell you.

So now I'm back at my new home (Greenpoint!) listening to Arctic Monkeys on repeat. I hope they cross the pond more often in support of Humbug because they kick ass, and I adore them. Thanks for a lovely evening, lads.