August 04, 2008

"Gibson Through the Lens" at the Sunset Marquis Hotel and Villas in West Hollywood: Stevie Wonder, Zakk Wylde, Carole Pope, Kelly Cutrone, Jeremy Scott and Michael Schmidt

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Above: Jeremy and Michael do the Hollywood tango

Dear Readers,

I am back from my brief jaunt to lovely Los Angeles, tanned and relaxed after my stay at the newly renovated Sunset Marquis Hotel. I spent lots of quality time with Kelly Cutrone and attended the hotel's champagne-soaked bash for the "Gibson Through the Lens" photo exhibit.

A full report of my trip can be read here on A Shaded View on Fashion.

Thanks for visiting,

Glenn Belverio

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August 03, 2008

Beaut at The Slipper Room in New York, July 23, 2008. Photos by Glenn Belverio

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Dear late-night cocktail loungers, petticoat polemicists, and Dali llamas:

About a week-and-a-half ago, my friend Christine took me to see Beaut perform at The Slipper Room on Orchard Street and I've finally had time to post some of the shots I took. Beaut is singer/performer Marti Domination with musical accompaniment by Paul "Twinkle" Arfield of NYC Victorian punk band Stiffs, Inc. I've known Marti since back in the early '90s when I saw her perform often at Jackie 60. Her performance with Beaut was absolutely sublime: minimalist, hallucinatory, and hypnotic. Sometimes Marti sang dreamy, stripped-down renditions of Velvet Underground songs, and sometimes she just performed a series of cryptic pantomimes that seemed to combine slow-motion French can-can with interpretative dance.

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Above: Christine and Marti before the show

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Marti's lobster dance, which read as an homage to Salvador Dali's "Lobster Telephone," was especially zeitgeisty: The Museum of Modern Art currently has a fantastic Dali show up now (which I saw when it was in previews and which features a stunning backdrop from Hitchcock's "Spellbound"). She also dedicated a song to The Marx Brothers (I think. I was a bit tipsy) which also read as a nod to Dali--the Spanish artist worshiped Harpo Marx and once gave him a harp strung with barbed wire as a gift. It was fitting that, besides Christine and I, the only people who stuck around for Beaut's second set was a group of enthusiastic scenesters from Mexico. After all, Andre Breton once declared Mexico City "the last surrealist city in the world."

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Beaut is playing a big show at the Spiegeltent in New York City on Friday, October 17--mark your calender! You won't want to miss this one.

Thanks for visiting.

Love,
Glenn Belverio

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July 27, 2008

Hollywood, here I come! Sunset Marquis Hotel and Villas presents "Gibson Through the Lens." Plus, Flashback!: Madonna's Hollywood 2003.

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Above: Costume designer Irene (allegedly) tried to kill herself by leaping off the 'H', due to her unrequited love for Elizabeth Taylor. (At least that's what Bruce LaBruce claims in one of his movies).

Dear starlets, stalkers, strippers, star fuckers, and dolls hooked on dolls:

I'm being whisked off to LA this Tuesday to cover a party at the legendary rock star haven, the Sunset Marquis Hotel in West Hollywood (where I'll also be staying for three nights). According to the hotel's bi-coastal publicist, my Italian adopted sister and star of The Hills, Kelly Cutrone: "The place is oozing with rock 'n' roll history! The Sunset Marquis is where the Red Hot Chili Peppers jumped off the roof naked, where the Rolling Stones threw TVs out the windows, where Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode tried to committ suicide--TWICE!" A shiver of apocalyptic glamour went down my spine as she told me all this over the phone.

I haven't been to LA since....back in the early '90s, when I attended the SPEW 2 'zine fest (with my babysitter, of course). Courtney Love was supposed to perform with her then-new band Hole but she was a no-show. Dennis Cooper, the organizer of the event, hung a large sign over the entrace to the performance venue that read "HATE COURTNEY LOVE." Vaginal Davis, who I became friends with at SPEW 2, made up for the lack of Love with a killer performance by her all-girl Mexican punk band, Cholita. That is one show I will never forget. (Vag is living and performing in Berlin now but I have yet to visit her).

This Wednesday, a rock 'n' roll photo show called "Gibson Through the Lens" will have its opening bash at the Sunset Marquis. Apparently, every rock star who appears in the photos (work from shutterbugs such as Bob Gruen and Mick Rock) has been invited--but who will really show?!? Look for my report here and on aShadedViewonFashion.com.



Above: One of M's underrated videos

Madonna is taking quite a beating in the press right now, with frightening photos surfacing and rumors of a nervous breakdown. I'm not a rabid fan, but have always liked her work, ever since I saw her rolling around and exposing her then-ample thighs while wearing a wedding dress on the MTV Awards in 1985. It was a pop-punk gesture that caught my very discerning attention (there were so many great punk/new wave bands around in those days that I had little patience for pop music). Jean-Baptiste Mondino's brilliant video for her 2003 song "Hollywood" is an homage to genius Guy Bourdin's photos from the '70s. Bourdin's son tried to sue claiming that eleven of his dad's photos were ripped-off in the video. What utter nonsense. Anyone who is a fan of Bourdin's work can clearly see this is an homage. Can you imagine if Madonna (not too mention so many performers) were sued every time they were inspired by a film or photo? It's too preposterous to even discuss.

See you by the pool,

Glenn Belverio

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July 20, 2008

Flashback!: My reviews of the Fall 1998 Collections. Harsh, harsh, harsh.

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Above: Some of the "looks" from Hussein Chalayan's preposterous Fall 1998 Collection.

The year was 1998. The assignment: reviewing the New York Fall 1998 Collections for GLUE magazine (a mostly forgotten, upstart fashion and culture 'zine that came out of LA.) Madonna was about to turn 40. The internet was still in its infancy. Heroin chic had become unfashionable despite the fact that many fashion (and travel) editors now had a nasty habit that was hard to kick. The Halston brand, designed by Randolph Duke, was only in its first re-vamp since the real Halston died (how many has it been since then--twelve?) Stephen Sprouse was still alive and doing collections (miss him!) and minimalism was beginning to mutate.

I was reminded of the Fall 1998 fashion season while I was hanging out with the delicious demon of disheveled chic, Rick Owens, last Monday night, when I realized it was ten years ago that I met him at the Mercer Hotel. Laurie Pike, who created and edited GLUE, invited me to see Rick's fall collection, which she gamely modeled for editors and buyers in a suite at the NY hotel. Rick was not yet a fashion supernova then, but I became an instant fan of his after seeing his horsehair-edged skirts and fraying hipbone jackets. I wrote a brief review of the collection for GLUE's first issue (text below) along with some other reviews of familiar and forgotten names who perhaps didn't fair as well under my poison pen. (Or maybe I was too busy taking aim at the audience. Whatever it was, I sure had a lot of nerve in those days. I must have been sipping Kenneth Anger bile-tinis with cobra-venom chasers or something. Oh, and I did not review Hussein Chalayan's collection, as he did not show in NY--but the above image may leave some feeling nostalgic for the days when many fashion presentations were more about giddy provocation and less about bland branding).

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A fashion rewrite of J.G. Ballard's Crash might feature Vivienne Westwood fisting Alexander McQueen, the pair climaxing and expiring in a high-speed collision. Therein lies the sensibility of LA designer Rick Owens, who showed his small collection informally at the new Mercer Hotel. After encouraging me to touch a fitted jacket with puffy pockets, Owens informed me that it had been made out of his own mattress cover "covered in cum stains." Gee, and I thought it was merely a clever jacquard. [I WISH RICK WOULD REVIVE THIS STYLE FOR SPRING 2009!]

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Above: Behold, the Goddess Bunny--a transsexual terrorist/prostitute/porn actress/philosopher who once worked in Rick Owens' LA atelier as the designer's fit model.

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PAPER fashion trollop Mickey Boardman returned to his trusty bag-lady chic after last season's dour grey ensembles. Today he was featuring a bright yellow polo shirt, green sneakers, a translucent red carry-all crammed with junk, and the overall bearing of a weekend yachtsman on crack. [YIKES! NO WONDER MICKEY TOLD ME HE WANTED TO USE GLUE AS TOILET PAPER A FEW MONTHS LATER.] Blanken's collection was very now-now, very late '90s. The kid's got talent, and both lines (Christian Blanken and his less-expensive SRC-8) suggested that techno-minimalism is still alive and kicking. That is, when you could see the clothes: The runway was lit by a strobe-light that was not only gimmicky, but sent several editors into epileptic fits. Their convulsions rivalled many of ALLURE magazine's uber-editor Polly Mellen's front-row performances. Some of the robotic models sported knee-high hose with strappy sandals or mules (for fall, mind you) in homage to Edie Beale's style in the documentary Grey Gardens.

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This show was noteworthy in that it was one of those truly tasteless Italian collections in the Versace vein where you can only sit drop-jawed as the Eurotrash car crash goes careening down the runway. Here were garishly dyed real fur coats with "Coveri" burnt out in a continuous pattern that made the interlocking G's and F's of Gucci and Fendi look like an exercise in restraint. (Memo to PETA: Now you have a point.) Underneath were crotch-grazing asymmetrical hem disco dresses and long, sheer gowns with back slits cut clear up to the models' colons. And let's not forget those panty hose bejewelled with real diamonds that spelled out the house's name--in case you didn't notice it on the coats.

After encouraging me to touch a fitted jacket with puffy pockets, Owens informed me that it had been made out of his own mattress cover "covered in cum stains."

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Despite the hipster hype and the crush to get into this hour-late show, I couldn't make out what all the fuss was about. Not-so-special K's downtown boutique hawks poorly-constructed clothes that would only look good on Wilma Flintstone, with price points she couldn't afford with Fred's charge-a-plate. Instead of working some kind of cavewoman chic, however, K seems more intent on being the rock'n'roll designer, though her clothes are less musician than strung-out editor: ugly butterfly prints, messy money-changer sleeves and sloppy side slits.

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Where Daryl K fails, Betsey Johnson succeeds, again and again. Betsey's usual trashy rock'n'roll antics were turned up full volume for this collection, a tribute to eternal glamour icons such as Madame X, Candy Darling, and Ginger Grant. There were oodles of gold lame, jet tulle and platinum silk lingerie worn with tangled blonde wigs. African model Alek Wek ripped her wig from her cropped pate and angrily flung it at the audience; a camp gesture that was, to me at least, the runway equivalent of Susan Sontag's critique of Leni Riefenstahl's Nuba tribe photos back in the '70s (i.e. too fascist, too kitsch). Seated front and center was pop goddess Deborah Harry who looked wonderful in tight knit black crochet. Many of the models never made it to the end of the runway, opting instead to pause and pose directly in front of Harry's seat. One model wearing an "Electric Ladyland" look--a gold silk ombre slip that reminded me of an outfit from a Blondie video--writhed and vamped gratuitously inches from Harry, who recoiled in horror. More suitable homages to the Blondie oeuvre included looks named "Blondage" and "Call Me." When the hi-NRG version of "Rapture" blared through the speakers, Harry wiggled her foot nonchalantly to the beat; the action of someone who has settled comfortably into legend status--like Betsey Johnson herself.

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Above:This photo is not from Fall 1998 but I'm kinda loving it. Watch this look come back via Madonna in Fall 2018.

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Before the show, TV crews jockeyed for position either in front of VOGUE's Anna Wintour or BAZAAR's Liz Tilberis, whose rivalry is now out of the closet since Wintour told The New York Times that she has no time to read No Time To Die, Tilberis' autobiographical saga of cancer and glamour. In an attempt to upstage the editoral queenpins, ALLURE's Polly Mellen, wearing something tight and sheer--not that there's anything wrong with that--was inexplicably doing a Bette Davis impersonation. As for the collection, Randolph Duke's fur and cashmere assault may provide some artillery against Tom Ford's nouveau riche plagiarism of the original Halston.

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This show brought back memories of Sprouse's big store in Soho, on Wooster Street, that opened in the mid-'80s, in which I oohed and aahed at the neon punk interpretations from the safety of my baby stroller. This collection's sequin dresses printed with the face of Jean-Michel Basquiat also reminded me of the fun I once had in the Michael Todd Room of the Palladium during the same period, courtesy of a fake ID. In his resurrection of druggie Basquiat's image, Sprouse seems to defy the heroin chic backlash. But if one wishes to invoke Warhol iconography, why not choose more interesting subjects such as Edie Sedgwick (as Anna Sui has done on T-shirts) or the hilarious Brigid Polk?

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An unsettling sight: Anna Wintour's bright fuchsia trench coat clashing with VOGUE style editor Camilla Nickerson, who, giving death-warmed-over-realness, seemed to float wraith-like next to her boss. Robinson's collection, which featured sloppy pleats, reverse darts, and big puffy nylon jackets, only left me jonesing for a shot of Yohji, a snort of Rei.

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The invitation to this show alluded to two of my favorite '70s phenomena--After Dark magazine and the film Looking for Mr. Goodbar. But it did not deliver anything on the level of John Bartlett's infamous After Dark-inspired collection a few years ago. This show was worth going to, however, for the elevator ride on the way down. I was trapped between VOGUE's Andre Leon Talley and Polly Mellen who was pressed so tightly against me, I thought we were reenacting the love scene from Harold and Maude. When the elevator operator asked if we were rushing off to the Armani show, style giantess Talley bellowed, "Sssproussse." The elevator man asked, "How many S's are in Sprouse?" But his query was drowned out by the thunderous patter of Talley's Titanic-sized loafers.

Thanks for joining me for this trip down memory lane.

Love,
Glenn Belverio

July 15, 2008

Rick Owens store launch dinner at Mr Chow Tribeca New York, July 14, 2008

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"Is it true that the chicken chow mein is $3,000 per order here??" Rick Owens greets his guests before dinner.

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"Don't you love our sneakers?" Rick and I outside his new store at 250 Hudson. That's his publicist, Pierre Rougier, behind us. (I believe Rick's sneaks are from his own line; mine are from a bin at the Salvation Army).

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Jewelry designer Lori Rodkin with her taxidermed pet. It's either an Ewok or a former Paper magazine editor, not sure which. Also, don't get too distracted by the sexy tattooed man sitting next to her.

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Kembra Pfahler makes her entrance. Did everyone see what Mauricio Padilha of MAO PR said about her in that NY Times article about Madonna's allegedly waning style? "The lace-up boots, Padilha said, may have come from Kembra Pfahler, the lead singer of the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, who remains a cultish influence on the fashion and art set."

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Rick's wife, the intriguing Michele Lamy. Loving the bracelets and hardware. Wonder if Madonna will steal this look for the Hard Candy tour...

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Terence Koh, Kembra, and Rick

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Rick and fashion writer Joselle Yokogawa

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Rick and Professor Valerie Steele. Valerie is curating a goth-themed fashion exhibit at FIT, which will include some of Rick's pieces. It opens on September 4 (can't wait to see what she puts together). Oh and yes, that's Thom Browne behind them. He goes to everything.

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July 12, 2008

My day in Philadelphia with Camille Paglia. By Glenn Belverio

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Above: The spectacular Swann Fountain

Dear Philly-o-philes, Paglia-esque pundits, Rocky Balboa buffs, and Duchampian demimondaines:

I recently visited my close friend Camille Paglia in Philadelphia, where she is the University Professor of Humanities and Media Studies at the University of the Arts. Camille and I met back in October 1992 when she was touring with her essay collection, Sex, Art, and American Culture. In 1993 we collaborated on the short film, "Glennda and Camille Do Downtown" and in 1995, "Glennda and Camille Do Fashion Avenue." I hadn't seen her since she visited NYC two summers ago and it truly was a treat to have her as my own personal tour guide in the City of Brotherly Love (I hadn't been there since 1994, when our film played at the Philadelphia Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. I have vague memories of being on stage--done up like a Nancy Sinatra doppelganger--standing next to Camille, and rambling on about why I thought Leni Riefenstahl was a feminist icon).

On this recent day I visited Philly, Camille, as you can imagine, never stopped commenting for one moment on the details concerning every monument, fountain, painting, sculpture, building, street corner, tree, rock, and lamp post that came into her crosshairs. (I exaggerate, of course--but I learned so much!)

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We started out the day with dim sum at Dim Sum Garden in Chinatown. Better than most of the dim sum I've had in NYC and on par with what I've had in Hong Kong, mainland China and Kuala Lumpur, the food at Dim Sum Garden is a must for all visitors to Philly's Chinatown, One of the highlights was the spicy sliced ox tongue and veal stomach with cilantro (above). Mmm, mmm, good! I instructed Camille on how to eat Shanghai soup dumplings (which I first tried in Shanghai 5 years ago) without burning her mouth as we wildly caught up on international gossip--all off the record, of course! It was such a relief to gossip publicly in Philly without having to constantly look over my shoulder, as I do in NYC, to see if so-and-so editor or bottom-feeding blogger is eavesdropping.

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Next stop was the gorgeous Swann Fountain in Logan Square on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, which connects Center City to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It's also known as the Fountain of the Three Rivers--three colossal Native American figures represent Philadelphia's main waterways--the Schuylkill River, the Delaware River, and Wissahickon Creek.

The Swann Fountain was designed by sculptor Alexander Stirling Calder in 1924. Calder's son was Alexander Calder, who is of course famous for his mobiles. Calder's father, the sculptor, Alexander Milne Calder, did the giant figure of William Penn atop the tower of Philadelphi's City Hall.

Logan Square was where the public gallows used to be. The last person executed there was in 1823.

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Above: Camille cools off in the Swann's spray

Camille: "I am wearing my Axe t-shirt from Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, where I lectured in May. The Brazilian superstar singer, Daniela Mercury, who sent me five of her DVDs tied up with red ribbon to the green room after my lecture, is called 'The Queen of Axe.' Axe is a heavily rhythmic pop music that was born in Bahia, the most Africanized region in Brazil."

Speaking of Mercury, I found this article and photo of the singer kissing another woman star onstage (shades of Madge and Brit, hello) while recording a DVD. (To enlarge photo, click on "Vieja a foto ampliada).

After her recent lecture trip to Brazil, Camille wrote about Ms. Mercury in Salon and it can be read here.

(For further reading on Brazil, check out Glenn Belverio reports from Belo Horizonte on Hintmag.com)

Next stop was the Philadelphia Museum of Art....

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Camille: "The pediments (triangular architectural niches above columns) of the Philadelphia Museum of Art  recreate the original design of Greek temples. We think Greek and Roman statues are cool marble white, because their paint has worn off  over the centuries. It seems weird and garish to see how vividly polychrome ancient sculptures actually were!

At the center here (created in terra cotta in 1932) is Zeus, king of the gods, wearing a sunburst crown and carrying the globe of the world in his hand. To his right is Aphrodite, goddess of love. To his left is the mother goddess Demeter with the child Triptolemus. Then seated is Ariadne, princess of Crete, watching the Greek hero Theseus lift his sword to slay the dread Minotaur, half bull, half man, whose lair was the mysterious labyrinth at the great palace of Knossos. Scholars have conjectured that ancient Cretans thought that the thundering sound of earthquakes was the roar of a subterranean bull."

(For some reason, whenever I hear "Greek mythology" I think of the yummy Harry Hamlin as Perseus in "Clash of the Titans".....)

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Above: Camille would like to see Diana stripped of her patina

"Diana," by August Saint-Gaudens, is a colossal, gilded copper image of the Roman goddess of the hunt, which dominates the main staircase at the Museum. "It definitely needs cleaning--I am appalled!" Camille exclaimed when we entered the main hall. "In 1991, when Harry Benson photographed me at the Museum for the cover story of New York magazine ("Woman Warrior"), the statue was still gold!"

"Diana" was made in 1891 for the tower of the original Madison Square Garden, designed by Stanford White and demolished in 1925. As an archer, she illustrates the Garden's sports motif. It was actually the second statue of Diana that Saint-Gaudens made for the tower. The first one was designed as a weathervane and turned out to be too big. It was the highest object in Manhattan at that time and was the first statue to be lit up by electric light. It could be seen from New Jersey and the other boroughs.

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Above: Proto-Bollywood starlet, circa 1578

Camille and I toured the Pillared Temple Hall from Madurai, Tamil Nadu, in Southern India. It was constructed of granite in the 16th century.

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Me and a Hindu fertility goddess. Too bad I left my ovaries at home that day!

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Above: "I'm as haggard as my fellow Aries, Bette Davis, in 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?'! I'd just staggered from two straight weeks of boilerplate university paperwork." (We think Camille looks fab posing here in a Japanese ceremonial teahouse in a stone and bamboo garden.)

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Above: No, this is not a Catholic sex toy.

This Silver Reliquary contains the forearm of St. Babylas (!), martyr and bishop of Antioch from the 3rd century. Made around 1467 (they kept his arm around for that long?! Did they even have freezers back then?) in Germany. Relic from Byzantium (Constantinople, now Istanbul).

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Above: In case you were wondering whatever happened to Sister Wendy...

This is the Reliquary Bust of Saint Scholastica, sister of Saint Benedict (she may also be a distant relative of Gina Lollobrigida but this has not been confirmed). Born in Italy during the decadent late Roman Empire (THOSE were the days!). She is the patron saint of convulsive children and nuns. Painted wood, made around 1500 in southern Netherlands or northern France (and she would like great on my bookshelf next to my late-decadent Elvis bust and Fellini DVD collection). Camille: "She sure looks fresher than me! Love those glossy skin tones." And this was before CHANEL moisturizer was invented!

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Above: Paglia pauses for pious prayer pose and precious pontification.

Camille: "Saint Michael has been my favorite saint since childhood because there was a gorgeous statue of him in my baptismal church, St. Anthony of Padua in Endicott, New York, the factory town where I was born. He is shown in the silver armor of a Roman soldier as he spears and tramples the devil. As an Aries (sign of Mars, god of war), I have always identified strongly with that approach to life! It certainly inspired me as I trampled the devil of poststructuralism into the academic dust. It must be remembered that I was raised in the peppy, perky, ever-smiling Doris Day/Debbie Reynolds 1950s. St. Michael, in contrast, was a role model of fierce aggression. He represented courage and independent action--as did Amelia Earhart, my feminist role model during high school in the early 1960s. Is it any wonder that I had no patience whatever for the whining, male-bashing, victim-oriented feminism that sprang up in the late '60s and '70s? I'll take St. Michael over Gloria Steinem any day!" ZING!

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Above: A day without minimalist, reimagined porn is like a day without sunshine.

Brancusi, "Torso of a Young Man," 1917-22, maple on limestone block

Camille: "A magnificently minimalist icon, descending from the kouros sculptures (nude athletes) of Archaic Greece. The streamlined missing genitals are startlingly reimagined in the overall phallic/scrotal design."

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Camille: "Glenn exchanges a long, lingering glance with an attentive, mysteriously evocative cultic object."

Brancusi, "Princess X"  Polished bronze on a limestone block. 1915-16. "This began as a portrait of a real woman with a long neck. It then morphed toward the phallic and created a scandal."

After my intimate encounter with Brancusi's evocative, provocative objet, we made our way over to the Marcel Duchamp room....

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Above: Long before the calculated controversy of Damien Hirst, there was "Nude Descending a Staircase."

Camile: "Duchamp's cubist painting was the sensation of the Armory Show, held in New York in 1913, which introduced then-radically new European modernist art to the U.S. People laughed openly at this painting, and it was mocked in the press as "an explosion in a shingle factory." It looks more Futurist than Cubist, in my opinion, and resembles a series of stop-actioin photographs, or metallic gold robots/automatons."

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Above: Camille and I each posed behind Duchamp's "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even" or "The Large Glass" (1915-23). It's one of my favorite pieces by him.

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Above: I snuck a photo of Duchamp's swan song, an installation, through the work's keyhole.

Duchamp, "Given: 1 The Waterfall; 2 The Illuminating Gas"

Camille: "The public was not told about this work until his death in 1969. The viewer must look through a peephole in an old wooden Spanish door. There's a tiny, glittery waterfall effect created by an electric motor. But what stuns the viewer is the sprawled body of a naked woman, pudendum to the fore. It's not clear if we're looking at a pastoral picnic or a sex crime. The work has been highly controversial among feminists, many of whom consider Duchamp an apolitical sexist. However, to Warholites like myself, Duchamp was the brilliant, iconoclastic prophet of Pop Art."

Meanwhile, back outside on the Museum steps....

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Camille and I waited in vain for this bride and her bridesmaids to be stripped bare by their bachelors, even. I guess it was all for the better that life didn't imitate art.

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Besides wedding photo shoots, the other non-stop activity on the steps involved tourists running up the stairs and stopping at the top, fists raised in triumph ala "Rocky."

Above: Well before puberty, I abandoned my crushes on Mary Tyler Moore and the teacher from Romper Room and moved on to my first make-believe husband: Sylvester Stallone in Rocky.

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Eye candy alert! This adorable Rocky wannabe made it to the top of the stairs in record time. Eat his dust, Sly!

After the Museum, Camille and I drove down South Street and I jumped out to snap some of the local art...

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Above: Isaiah Zagar's Magic Gardens. Zagar is very famous for his glass mosaic murals, and artists come from all over the country to study with him.

After that, it was off to dinner at BUMP (a gay restaurant which featured waiters with meticulously appointed biceps and eyebrows) and drinks at Woody's...but I was so engrossed in the conversation, I forgot to take photos.

Thanks for reading!

Love,
Glenn Belverio

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July 09, 2008

In Memory of Dorian Leigh, 1917 - 2008

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Truly the first Super Model.
 

July 03, 2008

Retro gay beefcake for your 4th of July: Tab Hunter, Roddy McDowell, Rock Hudson, Guy Madison, Steve Reeves, and more.

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Above: Tab and Roddy sans shirts but with weiners...it just doesn't get better than this.

Happy 4th of July! My pal Camille Paglia sent me a link to what looks like a fabulous article about gay male actors during the Golden Age of Hollywood. I've printed it out so I can read it on the plane tomorrow (am flying down to South Beach to visit my witty, entertaining friend Bruce. Yep, I'm actually one of those lunatics who goes to Florida in the SUMMER. But Bruce lives in a beautiful, landmark Art Deco apartment building and is one block from a rather secluded area of the beach--there are no hotels near it. And the water is perfect this time of year).

You can read Inside the Dreamboat Factory here.

Coming up: Photos and coverage of my day in Philadelphia with Camille Paglia.

Love,
Glenn Belverio

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June 22, 2008

Mermaid Parade in Coney Island, June 21, 2008. Photos by Glenn Belverio

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Dear creatures of the deep, clam shuckers, corn dog suckers, and tattoed love gods:

Yesterday was the 25th annual Mermaid Parade in Coney Island and I'm sure everyone is still shaking the sand out of their wigs and scrubbing off the body paint. Thankfully Coney Island hasn't been taken over by greedy realtors and bland yuppies clutching their college degrees yet. Old-school punks, artists, salty and feisty working-class Italian and Hispanic guys and gals, and political activists turned out for what is the largest art parade in the US. I've been going to the Mermaid Parade almost every year since around 1987, back when I was but a mere fetus in a jar being spirited around New York by John Sex.

Amidst the festivities, an air of political awareness and bohemian defiance permeated. Mermaid Obama supporters marched in the parade, while a mermaid activist announced that she was going on a hunger strike which would not end until a decision was reached about the future of Coney Island. From today's Chicago Tribune:

'At the 25th annual Mermaid Parade on Saturday, event organizers will be encouraging people to return to Coney Island on Tuesday to testify against the city's plans to rezone the neighborhood, allowing for retail and high rise hotels in the amusement district.

"The Mermaid Parade is a celebration of the true spirit of Coney Island, so it's perfect timing actually," said Dianna Carlin, owner of the Lola Staar boutique on the boardwalk.

The parade's Queen Mermaid, Savitri D., has vowed to go without food until Tuesday's meeting.

"When we get political, we do it very artistically," said Dick Zigun, founder of the nonprofit arts organization, Coney Island USA, which started the parade in 1983.

The parade is a point of artistic pride for the city's amusement industry and is also a New York mainstay: Nearly 850,000 people turned out for last year's parade, according to the organizers.'

(You can watch Queen Mermaid's hunger strike LIVE here!: http://www.coneyislandusa.com/)

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Above: I love these two mermaids because they never seemed to leave Ruby's, my favorite bar in New York, all day.

I set off early for Coney Island with my friends Nancy and Christine. Christine brought cupcakes for the long F train ride and we cut them up and shared them will all the car's raucous passengers who were also on their way to the parade. Once in Coney Island, we headed straight for the long bar at Ruby's for an indulgent lunch of draught beer, bloody marys, hot dogs, corn dogs, fried shrimp, fried clams, raw clams on the half shell (super-fresh and delicious), and of course french fries with lots of hot sauce. So much for our solidarity hunger strike.

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Nancy and Christine

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Me getting intimate with a corn dog at Ruby's

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The real men of Ruby's

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Coney Island has everything, even a bar for gay zombie sluts.

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The Sea Horse That Ate Coney Island! I loved this because it reminded me of the 1953 monster movie, "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" in which a dinosaur crawls out of the ocean, runs rampant through New York, and then meets its demise in the middle of a burning roller coaster in Coney Island (I believe it was the Thunderbolt, which was torn down back in 2000). The film, which featured special effects by Ray Harryhausen, is said to be an inspiration for "Cloverfield."

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These dancers were a bittersweet reminder that Madonna was once interesting: They acted out M's brilliant MTV Awards Marie Antoinette-inspired rendition of "Vogue"...I'm too lazy to look up what year that was. 1992?

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Because New York rents have become so high, thanks to all the self-entitled, rich, Sex and the City automatons who have flooded into NYC from the flyovers, some of us have resorted to living in trees!

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J'Adore her Cyclone Roller Coaster headpiece

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Christine poses in front of the iconic, and defunct, Parachute Jump

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Fag alert! We ran into Jeremy Kost and Misstress Formika on the boardwalk. They were drinking vodka-and-the-blood-of-Christian-yuppie-children-tinis with only a drop of vermouth.

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Meanwhile, back at Ruby's things started to get bizarre...

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Ruby's rule #54: Do not put an ice cube down the bartender's back. Christine learned this the hard way when the unruly barkeep retaliated by grabbing several fistfulls of ice cubes and shoved them down the front of her blouse. He then proceeded to douse all of us by spraying a bottle of seltzer into the air. But it was all friendly fun.

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Attack of the 50-Foot Tranny!


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I ran into my friend Carlota and we proceeded to down numerous Ruby's signature draught beers to build up our courage to ride the Cyclone. Because the bathroom at Ruby's was closed, we had to run over to Nathan's to empty our bladders. Why was the john closed at Ruby's? Oh, just because a few weeks ago, some poor soul fell through the creaky old floor while taking a leak at the urinal and plummeted 10 feet into the basement--which used to be a speakeasy-of-sorts back in the '70s. Because the plumbing exploded during the floor's collapse, the guy was covered head-to-toe in shit when the paramedics and firemen dragged him out of the abyss. Yep, the fun never ends at Ruby's. Wheeee!

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My view of the Cyclone after I got off the ride and collapsed on the ground. Carlota was nearby, hugging a tree.

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Raw clams and towering, starfish-adorned wigs: It just doesn't get any better than this.

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Ladies! These gals regaled me with delightfully slurry, deliciously unintelligible bon mots. Beer: It's a good thing.

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Female on the Beach! Carlota knows that some like it chic...and sandy!

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Call the police, there's a homo on the beach! After Nancy and Christine left and Carlota and her 20-something friends went to a "Slip 'n' Slide party" (stop the ironic-hipster madness!!), I remained behind, collapsed on the beach. When I finally made it back to the East Village, I was covered with sand, raw clam juice, and fried-food grease.

Thanks for reading.

Love,
Glenn Belverio

June 01, 2008

In Memory of Yves Saint Laurent, 1936-2008

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