Confessions from the Velvet Ropes

AltaRomAltaModa Fashion Week, Adrien Brody in "Giallo," and my 2005 interview with Dario Argento in Rome

Dear Romanistas,

As Sebastian Venable might say, "Romans are on the menu" as I prepare for my trip to Rome to cover Alta Roma Alta Moda for A Shaded View on Fashion. The 4-day fashion event (July 12-15) will open with the 5th edition of a designer contest called "Who is On Next?" which is co-branded with one of my favorite magazines, Italian Vogue. Not to be a snob but as this is a fashion competition in Europe, don't expect the kind of low-brow bitchiness found on Project Runway and The Fashion Show. (But if we're lucky, we may see something on par with Diana Ross's fashion show in Rome from the film "Mahogany.")

Above: Italian Vogue creative director, Anna Piaggi at the Life Ball in Vienna, 2007. Photo by Glenn Belverio

Above: Adrien Brody and director Dario Argento on the set of Argento's 2009 film "Giallo."

The last time I was in Rome, back in 2005, I interviewed one of my favorite directors of all time, Dario Argento, at the invitation of the Turin Film Commission. For those who haven't heard, the Italian horror meister is releasing his new film, "Giallo," later this year and it stars American actor Adrien Brody. The title, literally "yellow" in Italian, refers to the tradition of Italian crime-fiction pulp novels with trademark yellow covers. Many of Argento's past films are classified as "giallos" because of their adherence to the genre's formula--a whodunit where the killer has a penchant for wearing sinister leather gloves and a black trench coat.

The female lead of "Giallo" is Brody's girlfriend, Spanish actress Elsa Pataky. Rumor has it that the reason Brody scored the lead role is because after Pataky was cast, Brody insisted on being on set with her at all times. Why? Allegedly he was concerned about Argento's reputation as a "misogynist director" who puts his actresses through grueling ordeals in his films. (Sound familiar? Remember the unconfirmed stories of Hitchcock ghoulishly chanting "faster!" while crews members hurled live birds at Tippi Hedren during the climactic attic scene in "The Birds"?)

So, since Brody would be hanging around the set of "Giallo" so much, it probably made sense for Argento to simply cast him as the male lead--bumping Vincent Gallo, Argento's original choice, off the film's marquee! (As much as I enjoy the handsome Adrien Brody, I can only imagine the kind of cineaste boner I would have gotten from watching Gallo in an Argento film!)

Interviewing Argento was one of the biggest thrills of my life. The feature I wrote, which was published in ZOO and WestEast magazines in fall/winter 2005, can be read below.

The Deep Red Menace

Italian horror maestro Dario Argento finally pays tribute to fellow Catholic, Alfred Hitchcock, and discusses his love of Turin, cats and sex 

By Glenn Belverio

On the Via Veneto in Rome there is a rather unconventional chapel, known as the Cemetery of the Capuchins, whose interior is decorated in a meticulous, manic fashion: thousands of bones belonging to Catholic monks have been arranged in a diabolical manner that suggests a speed freak arts-and-crafts fair staged in Hell. This outré display of Roman-style macabre is similar in effect to a typical film by Dario Argento. His films’ notorious set pieces, almost too numerous to mention – Jennifer Connelly sliding into a pit of decaying bodies and maggots, a young woman being shredded in a tangle of barbed-wire, a raven gouging out the eye of a killer with its beak at the Regio Opera Theatre – have garnered him a fanatical following worldwide since his debut film, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, was released in 1970. For years, lazy American journalists have pegged Argento “the Italian Hitchcock”, a label that he has vehemently resented. Until now. “I really love Hitchcock, even though I’m not as manneristic as he was”, says Argento. “I don’t imitate him, but sure, he has had an influence on me.”

Scene from "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage"

My friend Rinaldo Rocco, a handsome actor/playboy who coincidentally has portrayed the killer in many giallos, or Italian murder mysteries, has driven me to my appointment with Argento on the back of his Vespa. After the nerve-rattling ride over bumpy cobble-stoned streets, we are sitting in Argento’s Opera Film headquarters in Rome hearing about the maestro’s new TV film, Ti Piace Hitchcock? (Do You Like Hitchcock?). Argento, now a youthful 65, is friendly and robust while still possessing his signature ghoulish carriage that has caused more than a few to comment: “He looks like something out of one of his own horror films.” And while he seems to cultivate this physical image – he famously eats little or nothing while working on his films – he is a true Roman in many other ways: warm, demonstrative and with a fondness for anecdotes. His famous father Salvatore Argento was a key player in the Italian cinema world but what is less known is that his mother, who was a celebrity photographer in the 40s and 50s, is Brazilian. When I meet Argento, I present him with a Portuguese-language version of Camille Paglia’s book on Hitchcock’s film The Birds and he is flattered that I’ve recognized the other side of his Latin heritage. During the interview, Argento rolls along energetically in Italian – like a runaway Vespa careening through the Villa Borghese gardens – as Rinaldo struggles to keep up with him as my English-language interpreter. “For my new movie, I really wanted to imitate the style of Hitchcock, especially the long, drawn-out scenes he used for suspense”, Argento tells me. “But for my film, I really exaggerate the Hitchcock style of suspense by portraying long, long scenes that are much longer than his scenes. This is my way of commenting on Hitchcock’s main device for suspense.” 

"Suspiria"

The story of Do You Like Hitchcock? concerns a 23 year-old film student and Hitchcock fan named Giulio who meets two women in a video store, all of them set on renting Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. Giulio surrenders the DVD to the ladies who – in a gesture to Rear Window – live in the building opposite Giulio’s. When Giulio spies the two women making out, it becomes apparent that Do You Like Hitchcock? conspires to break through the sex-less, Catholic guilt-ridden barriers erected by the repressed Anglo director. “There are a lot of sex scenes in my Hitchcock homage, this is the only aspect that is different from his films”, explains Argento. “Hitchcock was very moralistic, he had this British way of behaving and directing, a British decorum. But I love sex and showing naked bodies in my films.” While this obvious Latin affectation is at odds with Hitch’s infamously timid attitude toward women’s sexuality, the fact that the British Master and Argento have a Catholic upbringing in common begs examination. 

The role of Catholic guilt in the horror genre cannot be underestimated. Argento believes that horror films from Catholic countries serve the function of “releasing some kind of evil you have in your inner self…this is a good thing.” But despite his overt Italian baroque tendencies, Argento claims the reason his films are popular in Japan is because “my mind is very similar to the Japanese mind. I have a lot in common with manga artists.” He feels the prevalence of moralism in cinema is more of a problem in non-Catholic, Western countries. “My films are not moralistic but American films are, especially the big ones like War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise”, he says. “There is a fixation with family values in that film.” And while the calculating Hitchcock seemed concerned with specific psychological conflicts--Norman Bates and his smothering albeit dead mother, Marnie’s pathological frigidity, marauding birds as primitive force vs. civilization--Argento’s work is frequently visceral. He is often so caught up with high visual style, lighting and mise-en-scene, there is a constant feeling that Argento is too distracted to notice the axe-wielding specter of Catholic guilt sneaking up behind him. Viewing Argento’s films is a bit like having sex with a stranger in a Catholic country--there is a nagging concern that you’re doing something terribly wrong but it feels way too good to stop. 

"Deep Red"

In addition to the Catholic connection, there are also the inevitable rumours concerning the cruelty of both directors. During a scene toward the end of The Birds, where Tippi Hedren is being brutally pecked by the film’s feathered stars in an attic, live birds were thrown at the blonde heroine. Hitch, who was not entirely fond of Hedren, allegedly egged on crew members by sadistically chanting, “Faster, faster!” In a similar scene in Argento’s 1980 supernatural experiment, Inferno, live cats were hurled at actress Daria Nicolodi, who was Argento’s then-lover and mother of their daughter Asia, and whose combative relationship with the director is the stuff of eternal Italian gossip. “Yes, Hitchcock hated Tippi”, Argento grins when I bring up both stories. Without denying the frenetic feline-tossing on the set of Inferno, he adds, “Hitchcock was afraid of birds, but I love cats. Some feel that cats are close to the devil and for this reason, priests rarely own them. But I don’t believe that.”

David Hemmings and Argento on the set of "Deep Red"

Produced by RAI Trade, Do You Like Hitchcock? – which was screened at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival –  is the first in a series of Hitchcock-themed feature length programs and marks Argento’s return to the television format. When he was in his early thirties, Argento sported a modish mop-top hairdo that perfectly complimented his rock star-like status after his 1972 TV series, Door Into Darkness, catapulted him into the Italian pop culture stratosphere. Similar to the TV serial Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Argento’s series featured the horror auteur introducing hour-long murder mysteries from a variety of directors, including Argento himself. “When Door Into Darkness was shown on TV it caused a revolution. Many people called the station and also the newspapers to complain about the excessive violence. I met with the people at RAI and many scenes had to be cut”, Argento recalls. “Now, with the Hitchcock homage the complaints from RAI have been about the sex scenes rather than violence.” 

The Villa Scott in Turin

Do You Like Hitchcock? was shot in Argento’s second favorite shooting locale after Rome, the city of Turin in the Piemonte region of northern Italy. Besides its arguably inflated reputation as the Italian capital of black magic, Turin is also the birthplace of Italian cinema – the first Italian film, Cabiria, was shot there in 1914. “I love shooting in Turin because there are many small neighborhoods that not many people have seen – it’s a rarely filmed city”, enthuses Argento. “I especially love Turin’s architecture as it is different from other Italian cities – it is between baroque and art nouveau.” As a friend and admirer of Michelangelo Antonioni, Argento has always appreciated the director’s use of architecture in his stories – particularly in the 1962 film The Eclipse where Monica Vitti wanders past modern buildings in a forlorn Roman suburb – and sees architectural structures as actual characters in many of his own films. Perhaps the most famous example of this in the Argento oeuvre is the flamboyant and decrepit art nouveau mansion in his 1975 giallo masterpiece, Profondo Rosso (Deep Red). Built in 1901, the Villa Scott--nestled in the hills of Turin--is featured in several key scenes in which actor David Hemmings is attempting to solve a series of murders. “A group of nuns and wayward girls lived in this house when I discovered it during a location shoot”, Argento says of the villa which remained empty for most of the 80s and 90s. “We paid for all of them to go on vacation in Remini, a resort on the Adriatic, so we could shoot there for a month.” The nuns and their girls returned tanned and relaxed to their villa which was henceforth referred to as “the Deep Red horror house.” Another famous Deep Red locale is the Piazza CLN, on the via Roma, with its bookend male and female statue-adorned fountains, where David Hemmings is witness to the film’s first murder. Off the tourist beat, this humble piazza will be known to the world when the 2006 Olympics descend on Turin this winter. 

Monica Vitti strolls through EUR in Antonioni's "L'Eclisse"

What is also little-known about Argento outside of Italy is that he shares the left-wing tendencies of his Italian cinema colleagues Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Bernardo Bertolucci. In 1969, Bertolucci joined the Communist Party and also collaborated with Argento on the script for Sergio Leone’s classic Spaghetti Western, Once Upon a Time in the West. “I was a member of the Italian Communist Party”, says Argento proudly. He also worked as the film critic for Party newspaper Paese Sera after he finished Catholic school. In 1973, Argento made a rare departure from the horror genre when he wrote and directed the underrated Le Cinque Giornate (The Five Days), a left-wing political satire about the Italian revolution centered in Milan in 1848. Evoking the comedy of Mel Brooks and Monty Python, Le Cinque Giornate is a savage commentary on the birth of Italy. “I wanted to show how false that birth was”, say Argento. “Because it was a revolution conducted by the rich and by the nobles. That is why six years later there was another revolution, an anarchist revolution.”

"The Five Days"

I mention that recently while re-watching his exquisite first film, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, I freeze-framed and zoomed into a Chairman Mao poster that hung on the American couple’s apartment wall in Rome. This causes Argento to launch into an anecdote from the time of Inferno’s pre-production with 20^th Century Fox’s involvement in 1979. An American producer friend from Fox, who was very drunk after a dinner with Dario and Daria, was invited to nap in the Argento bedroom. The man passed out in the dark and when he awoke an hour later, he saw an enormous wooden red star, the symbol of Mao’s Red Brigade, towering over the bed. “He came running into the living room where Daria, me and the man’s wife were drinking and talking and he started screaming at the top of his lungs ‘What the fuck is this?! Are you a terrorist, a member of the Red Brigade?!’” Argento recalls. “And I said ‘no, no, no it is just art, a sculpture’ and he said ‘I’m not so sure about that.’ After he went back to America, I never heard from him again and our friendship ended abruptly.” This story brings to mind the anti-communist soliloquy near the end of the preposterous 1949 American propaganda film The Red Menace: "My flag has three colors, not one that's the color of blood!"  

Of course Argento will always be thought of as the creepy yet dignified creator of Deep Red and other blood-soaked sagas rather than as a Red menace – and will continue to forge ahead in the terror terrain. Masters of Horror, a new TV series that will be distributed worldwide, will feature segments directed by fright titans John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, Roger Corman, George Romero – who Argento collaborated with on Dawn of the Dead – and others. Argento’s contribution will be a short film based on a comic book called “Jenifer”. The project grew out of a bi-monthly dinner gathering attended by the directors. At a recent one held in a Vancouver restaurant, Argento started arguing with John Landis after Landis opined that the shower scene in Psycho was effective because “you never actually see the gory stabbing." Argento began plunging his knife into the rare steak he ordered, screaming "No! I like to see contact with the victim! Lots and lots of blood! Audiences love it!" Would Hitchcock have liked Argento? We think so. 

Thanks for reading,

Glenn

P.S. - The trailer for Mario Bava's "Blood and Black Lace"--a giallo set in a Roman fashion house:

The Mermaid Parade in Coney Island, June 20, 2009. Photos by Glenn Belverio

Dear Ethel Mermen & Maids,

Because it's been raining for forty days and forty nights in New York, a tinge of S.A.D.ness hung over the Mermaid Parade this year....but once the peppy punch of the marchers' prozac-and-beer milkshakes kicked in, the languor melted away and a festive mood triumphed.

The shroud-grey sky wasn't the only bummer mer-celebrants had to cope with: Days before the parade, a rezoning and development plan was approved for Coney Island by the City Planning Commission. The plan will allow developers to dismantle the old Astroland (sections of it have already been removed--the Cyclone and Wonder Wheel, however, are protected as historical landmarks), build some horrid, charm-less Disney-like amusement park, and create 4,500 new housing units. (Only 900 of them will be affordable to low-and-middle-income families. Considering the lack of well-to-do NY yuppies given the recession, maybe the luxe condos will be snapped up by Europeans who have grown weary of their summer view in the south of France??)

But the clouds did have a (tarnished) silver lining: After fears that it would be shuttered, Ruby's Bar & Grill was able to renegotiate their lease with Thor Equities--for how long, I'm not sure. Opened in the late '60s, Ruby's is my favorite bar in New York. The walls are adorned with photos of old Coney Island stretching back to at least the 1920's, and the jukebox pumps out classics from Elvis, Sinatra and Johnny Cash. (None of that weird hipstah music the kids listen to in other parts of Brooklyn). 

On the way to Coney, we were blessed to be on the same F train car as the Reverend Billy, pastor of the Church of Stop Shopping. (Did I just hear a gaggle of fashion victims' hearts skip a beat?) From his website: 

"Reverend Billy and the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir believe that Consumerism is overwhelming our lives. The corporations want us to have experiences only through their products. Our neighborhoods, 'commons' places like stoops and parks and streets and libraries, are disappearing into the corporatized world of big boxes and chain stores. But if we 'back away from the product' – even a little bit, well then we Put The Odd Back In God!" Hallelujah, Billy!

 

Before the parade starts, it is a Coney Island tradition to meet up at Ruby's for beer, hot dogs and all manner of deep-fried delights.

 

My Mermaid Day lunch at Ruby's: Not one, but two plates of juicy, jumbo raw clams, washed down with a pint of Ruby's Amber Ale. Sluuurrrpp! (I also managed to wolf down an excellent sausage, onions and peppers sandwich as well).

 

If someone ever decides to remake that car crash of a film known as Fassbinder's "Querelle," this handsome, young man will be the first in line for the lead. (A la Brad Davis, this stud's sexual preference was up for debate with me and my friends. Carole insisted he was straight; Corey cast the gay vote. The fact that his sidekick--the guy in the blue t-shirt--was a sexually ambiguous hipstah didn't help matters).

Following a heavy rain, the parade got off to a dry start with plenty of color to combat the gloom.

Whenever I attend the Mermaid Parade, I always think of the time I interviewed Manuel Cuevas in Nashville in 2006. The legendary designer, who has created costumes for Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, the Stones et al, told me an amusing story about his now-departed pal Johnny Cash:

“Cash called me from a payphone on Sunset Boulevard and said, ‘Manuel, do you think it will happen again?’ His voice was half-hopeful, half-melancholy,” Manuel remembers. “And I said, ‘John, what are you talking about?’ And he said, ‘The titty parade! Do you think there’ll be another titty parade?’ I laughed and told him, ‘Well, I hope so and if there is, you better call me sooner next time!” (This was sometime during the Sexual Revolution—circa 1969—when liberated girls took to the streets and randomly flashed their breasts at policemen and other bystanders).

And speaking of Elvis....

No, this is NOT photographic evidence of the Ayatollah Khamenei rigging a voting booth in Iran--it's Zoltar, Coney Island's premiere prophet and used car salesman!

These ingenious gals dressed as roller coaster cars and sped and spun down the entire parade route.

Lobster Lady!

Is that mer-royalty approaching....?

It is! This year, actor Harvey Keitel was crowned King Neptune while actress Daphna Kastner was Queen Mermaid. (Sorry you can only see her arm in the photo!)

God save your mad parade....

"When is the fucking sun ever going to come out again?!?!"

Sexy bongo bearer!

"Nah, I didn't get paid much to be an extra in the "Eyes Wide Shut" orgy scene....but they let me keep the costume!!"

Ever since Henry Rollins stopped hitting the gym, he's begun to resemble Uncle Fester.

These clever craftsmen constructed a float out of some of the pieces from the dismantled Astroland. When God gives you lemons....

After the parade, everyone convened at Ruby's to escape the blistering cold outside....

My pal, the lesbian rock star Carole Pope, grabbed a bloody mary to prepare for her 2-hour bus ride to Asbury Park. Peaches was performing that night at the Stone Pony! From one iconic, time-worn party beach to another, all in one day....I can't keep up with Carole!

Corey and I left Ruby's so we could go take a spin on the Cyclone roller coaster (which I think is a UNESCO World Heritage Site at this point...?). On the way I discovered this customized bus which reminded me of the hippie-painted plane in Michelangelo Antonioni's counter-culture cult film, "Zabriskie Point."

No, this is not a beach in northern Scotland in early winter....it's still Coney Island in June.

Thanks for reading,

Glenn Belverio

Further reading: Coverage of the 2008 Mermaid Parade

Michael Gross's current Met hysteria, plus: The Jackie Kennedy article that got me banned from the Met Gala.

Dear Scandal Junkies:

I've been following the recent fracas that has erupted concerning Mrs. de la Renta's displeasure over Michael Gross's latest expose of New York's hallowed inhabitants and institutions: Rogues' Gallery: The Secret History of the Moguls and the Money That Made the Metropolitan Museum. Though I've not read it yet, I'm sure it's packed with many meticulously documented, clutch-the-pearls anecdotes like the ones found in some of his previous works, such as 740 Park and Genuine Authentic: The Real Life of Ralph Lauren. 

A hilariously written blog post and interview by the mysterious "Madame Arcati" documents de la Renta's attempt to suppress all media coverage of Gross's book. (Make sure you read the equally hilarious reader comments, as well).

I for one am not surprised that someone on The Met's A-list would resort to undemocratic tactics to quash any and all voices who dare to cast their social order in an unfavorable light. I was a victim of the Met Costume Institute's ire when I penned what was deemed an unflattering and irreverent piece about their Jacqueline Kennedy exhibit for DUTCH magazine back in late 2001. After attending a press luncheon with Harold Koda and Hamish Bowles to preview the show, I met with the Costume Institute's publicist (I can't remember the girl's name but I'm sure she's run off and married a once-rich banker and left The Met). She assured me that since I was covering the exhibit for DUTCH (the magazine was at the height of its buzz and influence at the time) that of course I would be invited to the Met Gala for the show's launch. Your invitation is already in the mail, she basically implied. Eight bottles of your favorite champagne have already been reserved. Your hors d'oeuvres? We'll ensure that the varnish on them has dried well before your arrival.

However, when I mentioned that my journalism style was often humorous, she blanched. "H-h-h-humorous?" her voice trembled. As if it was just was not possible to write anything funny or, god forbid, satirical about an exhibit celebrating the holy Mrs. Kennedy. (I'm really no big fan of the Kennedys. Jack was too rabidly anti-Communism for my tastes--how was he any better than Reagan?--and while I do appreciate Jackie on a certain level, I never could abide her ascension to sainthood via the fashion world. Her greatest skill was her opportunistic ability to choose the right men to marry, and her descent into decadence and self-indulgence during her Jackie O years, while entertaining, should somehow disqualify her from sainthood). 

Jackie O squeezes out a smile despite the fact that the whale-testicle-covered chairs that she ordered for the luncheon never arrived.

So, after my article on the Jackie exhibit came out in the summer issue of DUTCH, I waited for my Met Gala invite to arrive in the mail. But every day was a Charlie Brown-like mailbox experience. ("What's the matter Charlie Brown? Still no invite to the Met Gala?") Calls and emails to the PR girl, who was a good friend of the club doorman I later wrote a book about, went unreturned. The doorman reached out to her and he was similarly rebuffed. (Despite their friendship, I believe he never heard from her again). Weeks after the gala came and went, I called her again and left a courtesy message (again, unreturned) to see if she had received her copy of the magazine (surely she had) and wanted to know what she thought of the article. At this point I was really just trying to provoke her, and I knew that she had most likely been instructed by her superiors to slash me from the invite list. There's nothing more dreary than institution people who have no sense of humor about their subject matter. 

Anyway, here is the article from the Summer 2001 issue of DUTCH:

How Now Jackie

A new exhibit at the Metropolitan Costume Institute shows how Jacqueline Kennedy’s pop princess persona is irreplaceable. 

By Glenn Belverio

In 1963, about a week after the publication of Jacqueline Susann’s memoir about her pet poodle, Every Night, Josephine!, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. When Susann stopped by her publisher’s for a meeting, she found everyone gathered around the TV taking in the news. “Why the fuck does this have to happen to me?!” she exploded. “This is gonna ruin my tour!” But like any good writer, Susann was eventually inspired by this pitfall. Her last novel, Dolores, was “the intense, tragic story of Dolores Ryan, the beautiful and fashionable young widow of an assassinated American President”. The most thinly veiled roman-a-clef in history, Dolores examined the psyche--and shopping skills--of an American First Lady. An excerpt: “Their first real argument came when she bought ten pairs of shoes. Jimmy stared at the bill with total disbelief. ‘How can you wear ten pairs of shoes at once?’ ‘They match different clothes,’ replied Dolores. ‘Clothes I intend to buy.’” 

The clothes bought by the real First Lady of Fashion, Jacqueline Kennedy, will be featured in an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute titled "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years." Susann biographer Barbara Seaman writes of the author’s interest in Mrs. Kennedy: “She identified totally with ‘the other Jackie’, with her brunette beauty and elegance, her tragedies with children…her aura of sadness mixed with strength.” Sadly, there will be no juxtapositions of the Valley of the Dolls author’s famous Pucci outfits alongside Mrs. Kennedy’s Givenchy gowns. Also, don’t look for any mention of an experience that the two Jackies shared: both were patients of Max Jacobs aka “Dr. Feelgood,” the notorious quack famous for his vitamin B and amphetamine shots. (Mrs. Kennedy’s visits to Dr. Feelgood's office are documented in Sarah Bradford’s recent bio America’s Queen.) This would all make for an interesting comparative pop culture study in two American Jackies: Susann, the vulgar, brash broad of trashy letters, and Mrs. Kennedy, the polite, shy lady of historic and aesthetic preservation. Susann swore loudly like a sailor, indulged in Nembutal suppositories, and wrote books about pill-popping starlets and suicidal bisexuals. Mrs. Kennedy whispered demurely (“like Marilyn Monroe playing Ophelia,” Maria Callas famously quipped), smoked cigarettes while hidden from cameras (one would be hard pressed to find a photo of her smoking), and read esoteric French books. Some may argue that Jackie Susann was a precursor to the later, hedonistic Jackie O., wherein her First Lady decorum surrendered to the decadence of the late '60s--a period defined by Susann’s sensationalistic novels.

But being that the Jacqueline Kennedy exhibit is not meant to be viewed as a perverse pop playground (the tone is decidedly reverential), Susann’s sensible absence requires no explanation. However, the impressive show contains many consolations. “Jacqueline Kennedy was taking a look that was very much in common currency in certain fashionable circles but wasn’t by any means an aesthetic that had been embraced by America at large”, explains Hamish Bowles, Vogue editor-at-large and curator for the exhibit. “She took something that came from a very sequestered world and made it nationally and internationally visible.” On display will be many of the elegant gowns Mrs. Kennedy wore for formal functions and public appearances designed by American designer Oleg Cassini: the black satin dress she wore when she met the Pope, the famed Inaugural ball gown, the sleeveless pink shantung dress she wore to India (a trip she reportedly brought sixty suitcases for). There will also be a few Givenchys -- such as a stunning hot pink ribbon-back dress -- most of which were allegedly bought before she moved into the White House. (With the exception of the ones purchased for her appearances with JFK in Paris). This was in lieu of her suggestion that she would only buy clothes that were made in America. “If she was wearing Paris couture clothes that she already had in her wardrobe, I don’t think she can be criticized for that”, says Bowles. “On the contrary, it showed some level of sobriety and thriftiness, and it also showed that she was drawn to very simple, understated clothes.” 

Another way that Mrs. Kennedy satisfied her French fashion fixation was to have some of her clothes made by Chez Ninon, an American company that legitimately copied Paris couture. One such example is the cranberry wool trompe l’oeil dress (a copy of a Marc Bohan design for Dior) she famously wore in the televised tour of her White House restoration project. Even better than the actual dress is the inclusion of video clips of the program in the exhibit. The White House Tour video is a hypnotizing historical artifact. Mrs. Kennedy’s whispery, campy recital of historical factoids, her sometimes stiff, sometimes boyish movements, and her nervous schoolgirl smile suggested a failed attempt at projecting a fully developed pop royal persona. (She allegedly went to bed in tears after viewing the broadcast.)

It perhaps goes without saying that at least one garment will not be included in the show: the infamous blood-splattered Chanel-like pink suit that is stored away in some arcane Washington vault. “The stained suit Jackie refused to change that day documented the polarities of womanhood: the pastel pink of girlhood and romance and the barbaric blood red of birth and death,” wrote Camille Paglia in her essay "Mona Lisa in Motion."

“That garment, like the Shroud of Turin, was a pictogram of her life story, with its failed pregnancies and widowhood.” Some may wonder how an exhibit on the clothes of Jackie Kennedy can be complete without the psychological and historical information displayed on that suit. Many will understand the need for restraint and respect on such an issue. Jackie Susann’s Dolores certainly understood the need for restraint: “Part of the duties of being First Lady was to look perfect. She sure didn’t look perfect now…the wrinkled suit…her hair falling across her face…she mustn’t allow the tears to come. A lady doesn’t show emotion in public.” 

Abraham Lincoln debunked at the Loisaida Street Fair, May 24, 2009

Met Costume Institute's "The Model as Muse" disappoints, plus: flashback to my feature on director/photographer Jerry Schatzberg

Two stills from the obscure Jerry Schatzberg gem Puzzle of a Downfall Child

Dear Fashion Fans:

A few days ago I checked out the "Model as Muse" exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I had expectations, but not too high. After all, I've been looking at and writing about model culture for over ten years. I was hoping to see something new, something startling--some new twist on what is just, let's face it, a recycled theme and a weak idea. As I walked through the exhibit I was making air check marks in front of various photos and tableaus: Iconic Penn photos, check. Dovima and the Elephants, check (would have loved some obscure images/info on Dovima; she had an interesting trajectory), a "Studio 54 room," check. Vintage Dior clothing, check. Magazines opened to '90s Calvin Klein ads, check. Scenes from Funny Face projected on a wall, check. (Great film but THE most obvious choice! Why not throw a curve ball and project scenes from Puzzle of a Downfall Child?....but more on that later). The music played in the various "decades" rooms was predictable and uninspired: "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in the '90s room (most obvious choice) and "Talkin' 'bout My Generation" by The Who in the '60s room. Considering that Paco Rabanne was the featured designer in this room (along with clips from William Klein's film Who Are You Polly Maggoo which satirizes Rabanne's metallic fashions in its opening sequence) I would have thought someone would have been savvy enough to dig up "The Martian Without a Master" by Pierre Boulez. This was the song played when Rabanne marched black models down his runway, a first, in the mid-'60s. But instead we got The Who? Mediocrity! Mrs. Vreeland would not be pleased.

When I contacted former Costume Institute curator Diana Vreeland via Ouija Board, she confirmed that she was not pleased with the Met's current show. Photo by Andy Warhol.

I will admit that I was pleased to see some of the metal costumes from Klein's film. There was only ONE photo in the exhibit that I had never seen before, a sublime shot of Penelope Tree. But most of the choices were predictable and unsurprising to the fashion initiated. They've been seen millions of times; reproduced in the pages of American and foreign fashion magazines year after year and featured in countless other exhibits. (Even though I've seen it many times, I will admit it's always a pleasure to see Franco Rubartelli's photo of my favorite model, Veruschka--whom I interviewed in 1999 for DUTCH magazine--in Saint Laurent safari chic.)

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "But Glenn, you're old and jaded! You think you've seen it all." Perhaps, and perhaps this show will be of interest to teenagers and people in their early '20s. But even I know that many young people, especially young fashion fanatics, are very aware of fashion history and do have high standards. I have young friends who can describe in detail the looks from Azzedine Alaia's first collection (who, by the way, was not featured in this exhibit despite being well-known for promoting the concept of models as muses).

Above: Azzedine Alaia with Naomi Campbell. Campbell boycotted the Met "Model as Muse" gala to protest Alaia's omission. 

Finally, one last gripe (which, I admit, is also a segue): I do not recall seeing even one image by Jerry Schatzberg in this show. Am I wrong? If I'm right, this is absolutely criminal! Schatzberg not only shot brilliant fashion images in the '50s and '60s, he also directed the above-mentioned film Puzzle of a Downfall Child which features a model/muse, played by Faye Dunaway, who has a nervous breakdown. So, would you rather see that (it's never been officially released on DVD or video) or Funny Face for the trillionth time?

Back in the spring of 2000, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Schatzberg at his Central Park West apartment and penned the following feature which originally appeared in the September/October 2000 issue of DUTCH magazine. 

Schatzberg vérité

by Glenn Belverio 

Jerry Schatzberg is talking about the time he was blacklisted--not by Senator McCarthy, but by Faye Dunaway. "We had a fight because she arrived late on the set. She put my name on the list and I just left it there," he recalls. Schatzberg is referring to the filming of his obscure masterpiece, Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970), the story of a fashion model who has a mental breakdown. The film's protagonist, Lou Andreas Sand, played by Dunaway, has compiled an ever-growing list of photographers she refuses to work with. In a life-imitates-art moment, Dunaway added Schatzberg, who was once a fashion photographer and Dunaway's lover, to Lou's list. Luckily they reconciled and were able to finish this quirky gem of a film.

Based on the real-life story of model Anne St. Marie, Puzzle documents the rise and fall of a top model whose distortion of reality shapes the film's surreal narrative. "Anne had her own sense of humor," says Schatzberg, who fell in love with her when he shot her for Vogue in the late '50s. "The stress of this business led to her breakdown." The film is a bit like a Nostradamus prophecy of the tribulations suffered by contemporary models such as Kate Moss. Eerily, Dunaway's visage seems to channel the waif supermodel in the film. But Puzzle can be any girl's story. "Anne was not unique," Schatzberg remembers. "There were models who would walk into the studio and just break down crying because some editor told them that one shoulder was higher than the other." Schatzberg tape-recorded St. Marie during her downward spiral, which was abated by booze and pills, and later played the tapes for Carole Eastman, who wrote the screenplay for Puzzle. "Faye also listened to the tapes and got to know Anne that way," says Schatzberg. Eastman combined her own odd sense of humor with Anne's recorded persona, and Lou Andreas Sand was born. "When Carole initially listened to the tapes, she was so intrigued she left a friend with a toothache waiting in her car for three hours," recalls Schatzberg.

Above: Faye's fractured image in Puzzle

The film's title is derived from the story of a woman Schatzberg knew, who would wake up in the middle of the night, rush to the window and try to catch a "falling child." Schatzberg originally envisioned a film that was about an abortion, but as the story developed it became more about St. Marie and her downfall. Puzzle takes the viewer through Lou's fractured mind which imagines events such as an art director gunning her down while she is being photographed on a beach, and her bridal gown (which resembles a nun's habit and was inspired by the designs of Geoffrey Beene) changing from white to black as she flees the wedding altar. Puzzle is so obscure that the only copy Schatzberg has of his own film is the one designer Anna Sui taped when it was aired at an ungodly hour on a forgotten TV channel. It's the kind of film you hear fashion film freaks talk about in the same breath as that other classic Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? directed by another photographer/director William Klein. "We knew each other in the '60s," says Schatzberg. "I shot him working backstage at the Paris collections for Esquire."

 

Fashion photo by Jerry Schatzberg

Schatzberg, a native of Forest Hills, Queens, NY, got his start in photography in 1954 when he assisted fashion photographer Bill Helburn. In 1956, he moved to Manhattan and started shooting his own editorial for Glamour and Vogue. In addition to his fashion work, he was also involved with the '60s rock scene in swinging London. There, photographer David Bailey introduced him to Mick Jagger before most people had heard of the Rolling Stones. "Here was this guy with a ripped sweater and dirty fingernails, and all the girls were screaming and pulling at him when we got out of my car at one of their gigs," says Schatzberg, who later photographed the Stones in drag for the cover of their single "Can't You See Your Mother Standing in the Shadows?" Later, he was a financial backer for two seminal New York clubs, Ondine and Salvation, where Jimmy Hendrix (then Jimmy James) played his first gig. Most of all, Schatzberg wanted to make films and leave fashion photography. His debut Puzzle functions as a neat exit from his former profession. 

 Edie Sedgwick photographed by Jerry Schatzberg

Most of Schatzberg's films have garnered more enthusiasm abroad, mainly due to his European cinema sensibility: minimalist story lines, languid pacing, painterly-like vistas. "When I go to Paris, I'm treated like Spielberg. It's so good for my ego," laughs the director who still spends most of his time in New York, where he resides on Central Park West. After Puzzle, Schatzberg immediately began working on a new project, a film that he is perhaps most famous for: The Panic in Needle Park (1971), starring Kitty Winn and Al Pacino as heroin addicts who hang out in the park at the intersection of 72nd Street and Broadway. It soon becomes clear, however, that "Needle Park" is more than a row of grimy park benches; it is the mental landscape, or existential prison, that heroin addicts inhabit. The script was written by Joan Didion and her husband, John Gregory Dunne, who it is rumored spent just a couple of days researching the topic of junkies. However, before shooting, Schatzberg, Pacino and Winn hit the streets for six weeks to build on the script. "We hung out with junkies at Blimpie's and went to seminars for addicts at Roosevelt Hospital," says Schatzberg. 

"What do you mean I can't get a prescription for heroin?" Kitty Winn in The Panic in Needle Park

The resulting film is pure cinema verite, partly because real ex-junkies were cast as denizens of Needle Park. A scene depicting the cutting and packaging of heroin by dealers is so realistic that one waits for a documentary-style voiceover to accompany the action. The authenticity is helped again by the casting, this time of actual heroin cutters. In many of Schatzberg's films, particularly Panic, Scarecrow (1973) and Honeysuckle Rose (1980), the action is so natural that one almost suspects a candid camera technique, as if the actors were unaware of being filmed. "I think in some ways it's what I did in fashion photography. When I brought people into the studio, I still wanted them to be honest and real. For the collection I shot for Vogue in 1960, I just had people walking across the set in a very natural way, with their skirts poofing up and so on." 

 Jerry frames a shot

Schatzberg continued to make films throughout the '70s and '80s, winning the Palm d'Or at Cannes in 1973 for Scarecrow, but was relatively quiet during the '90s. "I worked on six films where either the script didn't work out or the money didn't come through. But I'm not very prolific anyhow," he shrugs. Happily for Schatzberg fans, the director has both a new film release and a retrospective scheduled for the fall. His latest, The Day the Ponies Came Back, is about a Frenchman (Guilaume Canet of The Beach) who goes to New York to track down his father and through him, to find himself. The story is inspired by Schatzberg's ex-wife who embarked on the same quest. With Schatzberg's help, she found her father. "I think we're all looking for our fathers, even if we have a father, we're always trying to please him. We do everything we can to make him like us." The film, shot in the Bronx, promises to have the same gritty appeal as earlier works. His next project, Boomer, will be another collaboration with Puzzle scripter, Carole Eastman, who Schatzberg hasn't worked with for twenty-five years. It's based on the memoirs of an English professor overcome with ennui. "She experiments with drugs and homosexuality because she is tired of her life," he explains. "Then she sees an ad for a railway worker position and she takes it. She still works there today."

Al Pacino in Scarecrow

Schatzberg has been credited with being one of the few directors to craft a new style of drama, an American genre that surfaced after the dust of the tumultuous '60s cleared. "The absence of schmaltz and sentimentality in many '70s dramas had a lot to do with the reality of the '60s," he says. "That decade brought us a lot, but also took away a lot." One device Schatzberg often likes to employ is the anti-climactic/non-resolution ending (a style pioneered by Michelangelo Antonioni). Lou walking away from her beach house still trying to piece together the jumbled episodes of her life in Puzzle. Helen silently following Bobby after he is released from jail in Panic. Max the drifter banging his shoe on the ticket counter at the train station after leaving his catatonic companion behind in the hospital in Scarecrow. The characters stay with you after the film is over, you worry about them as if you knew them. "You hope that maybe something nice will happen to them," says Schatzberg. "I loved Anne and I wanted her to come out of it the whole time I was photographing her during her breakdown. Those endings leave a little hope, a little optimism."

Surprise! "Puzzle of a Downfall Child" is on YouTube.

Thanks for reading.

Love,

Glenn Belverio

Marxist heartthrob! Hugo Chavez's daughter is dating Pablo Sepúlveda Allende. Plus, my report on fashion and politics in Santiago de Chile

Above: Dr. Pablo Sepulveda Allende sporting a Ho Chi Minh t-shirt. It just doesn't get any better than that.

Dear Fellow Pinkos,

I love this news item about Chavez's daughter, Maria Chavez, dating Salvador Allende's cute grandson. For those who don't know, Salvador Allende was Chile's democratically elected Marxist president who was overthrown by a bloody USA/CIA-backed coup on September 11, 1973, because the U.S. could not tolerate the existence of a fairly elected Communist so close to home. Allende committed suicide during the siege with a rifle given to him by Fidel Castro. Seventeen years of US-approved fascism, helmed by General Pinochet, ensued.

I traveled to Santiago de Chile in November 2007 to report on the Museo de la Moda and fashion/politics during the Allende and Pinochet years for ZOO magazine. For those who missed that issue, here is my piece below.

Man of La Moda

Jorge Yarur makes a fashion statement in Chile’s post-Pinochet culture

By Glenn Belverio

While passing through Buenos Aires last November, I had a brief chat with Argentine designer Jessica Trosman about my upcoming visit to the Museo de la Moda in Santiago, Chile. “There’s a fashion museum in Chile?!” she asked incredulously. Her shock was based on the unstylish reputation of most Chilean women. “Chilean women dress simply, nearly always in slacks; they wear their hair down and use little makeup," writes Isabel Allende in her 2003 memoir My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile. "On the beach or at a party they all look the same, a chorus of clones,”  It was certainly not my aim to judge the questionable dressing habits of Santiago’s female population. I was, however, curious about how a fashion museum was being received in this far-flung country, one that is framed by the Andes, deserts, glaciers, and a vast stretch of the Pacific. Chile is, after all, a nation whose fairly recent political history—Salvador Allende’s controversial Marxist government in the early '70s followed by a long, brutal dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet—continues to resonate in everyday life. (A popular bi-weekly newspaper called The Clinic, for example, serves up scathing political satire and investigation, and is named after the British clinic where Pinochet was first incarcerated.) 

 An illustration of Salvador Allende from The Clinic

The Museo de la Moda, which opened in June 2007, is located in the exclusive uptown neighborhood of Vitacura, a wealthy, sterile community full of opulent homes surrounded by towering hedges. The area is in marked contrast to Santiago’s bohemian and partially seedy Downtown and Bellavista districts, where a majority of the city’s museums are located. Entering the Museo, you have to check in at a guardhouse, making you feel as if you’re crashing a private party at someone’s home on Mulholland Drive rather than visiting a public museum. But, in effect, you are visiting a private residence, for the Museo has been installed in the former childhood home—an impressive, one-level Japanese-style house built in 1962—of Jorge Yarur Bascuñán. The only child of a wealthy textile manufacturer of Palestinian descent and a bohemian Chilean woman, Yarur transformed the house into a fashion museum after his parents passed away sometime in the '90s. He began collecting pieces in 1999 and has since amassed over eight-thousand acquisitions. 

The lovely zen-like exterior of the Museo de la Moda

Walking through the darkened hallways (the floor-to-ceiling windows of the house have all been covered with heavy curtains) I discovered such treats as important vintage Dior, Chanel, and Cardin pieces; a velvet dress worn by Eva Perón; Joan Crawford’s Jean Louis gown from the film Queen Bee; and a selection from Nolan Miller’s Dynasty wardrobe worn by Joan Collins. The temporary exhibit, titled Dressing Time and curated by Lydia Kamitsis, also reached back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and was comprised of pieces from Yarur’s collection. Another, permanent exhibit takes up several rooms and is devoted to tennis clothing from 1880 to the present. An interesting facet of the Dressing Time show was a number of dresses from the '40s and '50s whose designers’ names will go unrecognized by most. They are pieces that belonged to the muse of the museum, Yarur’s mother, Rachel Bascuñán. “My mother was looking for her own style, more than big labels,” Yarur told me over the phone from Paris, where he was tirelessly acquiring more pieces for the museum. “She liked fine clothes, but she was searching for her own identity.” 

A few of the pieces Ms. Bascuñán possessed were bought during her spectacular eight-month honeymoon in 1958. A colorful, dreamlike video transfer of an 8mm film plays continuously at the entrance of the museum’s galleries, documenting the honeymoon’s long trail: from Buenos Aires to Rio, Milan to Morocco (with a pit-stop in North Carolina so Jorge Yarur, Sr. could visit the cotton mills). Elsewhere in the museum is Ms. Bascuñán’s pink 1958 Ford Thunderbird—not a typical Chilean’s car at the time. One of her paintings hangs a few yards away from a work by Latin American surrealist, Roberto Matta Echaurren, in the house’s carefully preserved den. “All the knowledge of culture that I have is from my mother,” says Yarur. “My father was always working, so I spent a lot of time with her, listening to classical music and learning about art. My mother was a quiet, sensitive woman. She never spent hours on the phone gossiping like other Chilean women.”

Inside the Museo

“This young millionaire, Jorge Yarur, didn’t know what to do with his life until he discovered his passion for fashion, which he has dedicated all of his energy and resources to for the Museo,” says Professor Pia Montalva, a Yarur associate and author of To Die a Little: Fashion and Society in Chile, 1960 – 1976. “And he does it very well, very seriously, elevating himself in the eyes of other qualified museum experts.” Ms. Bascuñán’s consumption of non-big-label fashion was not, according to Montalva, unusual for Chilean women during the '40s and '50s. “There was a design house in Chile during the '40s that sold prototyped copies of French high fashion. A manufacturer would buy a copy and then reproduce it with Chilean fabrics, using high-quality manual labor, and sell it commercially in large numbers,” Montalva explains. “By the mid-'60s, there were a number of boutiques that sold imitations of more avant-garde designs by Courrèges, Cardin, Saint Laurent, and Rabanne.” 

Jorge Yarur photographed in Paris in 2007 by Kai Junemann

Copied French ready-to-wear was obviously not confined to Chile—Jackie Kennedy wore American-made knockoffs of Paris fashion while in the White House—but soon, even ersatz fashion statements were rendered démodé by sudden political and economic changes. When Salvador Allende was elected president in 1970, he implemented a number of socialist programs designed to improve the socio-economic welfare of Chile’s poorest citizens. “Allende was all the time against the rich people, and that affected my family,” remembers Yarur, who was a child at the time. “His government was about resentment of the rich, not about everyone having the same standard of living.”

Salvador Allende

“During that time, there was a fear in exhibiting or representing your status. Expensive, ostentatious dressing style disappeared,” explains Montalva. But, it seems, Chilean Marxism did not sound the death knell for creativity and style. “Toward the end of Allende’s presidency, the lack of natural resources produced a hecho a mano (manmade) style,” continues Montalva. “Women made their own clothes and accessories by recycling and transforming old garments from their wardrobes. A hippie-folk aesthetic emerged with an emphasis on the individual.” 

Because the United States government could not tolerate the existence of a democratically elected Socialist in Latin America, they aided and abetted General Pinochet in a bloody, brutal coup against Allende on September 11, 1973. During the long years of Pinochet’s undemocratic government that followed the coup, U.S. and other foreign economic interests predictably seized the moment: Fashion flourished under fascism. “The big change during the military dictatorship was the arrival of foreign fashion brands: Esprit, Levi’s, Wrangler, Benetton, Fiorucci, and the boom of malls and department stores,” notes Montalva. “In the long run, the consequence of this change was the progressive destruction of Chile’s national industries, textiles, and clothing. The main legacy of Pinochet is that Chile has distanced itself from its continental aesthetics. It denies its mestizo origins and considers itself a ‘white’ country with a very superior level of development. And from that it builds its identity.” Perhaps it’s this homogenization that spawned Isabel Allende’s “chorus of clones”? “The women of Chile copy each other,” confirms Montalva. “I don’t think that will change because it’s rooted in Chilean idiosyncrasy; but it is a problem that is much more complicated than fashion.”

General Pinochet addresses his troops

A symbol of twenty-first century optimism, the Museo de la Moda is like a dollop of sugary meringue on Chile’s bittersweet late-twentieth-century history of flawed social programs, political repression, and torture. But even with the frothiness of eighteenth-century lace ruffles and Joan Crawford’s crimson satin, Yarur is turning his sights toward the streets. “I want my exhibits to address the cultures of North and South America and Europe, but not just be a reflection of the glamour you see in fashion magazines. Real fashion is to be found on the street, not at a party where everyone is wearing nice dresses and tuxedos. That’s a minority, what you see on the red carpet.” This is good news for those who’ve grown weary of Anna Wintour’s annual Costume Institute gala and the event’s coverage of couture-clad starlets who think Erté is the name of a new brand of caffeine-infused vodka. Yarur’s museum is also poised to address a larger political history’s influence on clothing: the two World Wars and their impact on fashion’s long-lasting patterns. Yarur’s overall fashion vision is at once rooted in Chile (the museum’s homage to his parents) and well beyond his country’s social and religious parameters. “His collection is made with a non-elitist and non-nationalistic approach,” says curator Lydia Kamitsis. “He juxtaposes pieces from all over the world, and of different interests. They can be very simple or very sophisticated. This diversity makes us understand what fashion is about in France compared to Italy, the U.S., Argentina, or Chile.” Beyond the Andes, it turns out, lies a new and unlikely fashion frontier. 

My photo of an exit at a Santiago subway stop. No, this has nothing to do with 9/11 in the U.S.--the avenue is named after the day of the 1973 coup in remembrance of Allende's death. (Chile is now moderately Socialist).

Global fabric crisis: World silk-taffeta shortage blamed on Andre Leon Talley's Met Ball outfit. Chinese silk worms exhausted, depleted.

Of course, I wasn't at the Met Ball last night--I was permanently banned from their galas after I penned a decidedly irreverent piece on the Jackie Kennedy exhibit for DUTCH magazine back in 2001.

Andre's capes through the years, courtesy of WWWWD: http://www.wwwwd.org/alt/

Michael Musto declares Derek Neen the Best Doorman in New York City

Dear Readers,

Once upon a time, this blog used to be about New York nightlife, club doormen and my 2006 book, "Confessions from the Velvet Ropes." But as you probably noticed, I've become bored of the NY club scene and started getting my kicks by traveling around the world to fashion shows and other glam events. However, I couldn't let this item pass by. On his blog, Michael Musto interviews doorman Derek Neen and declares him the "best doorman in NYC" (Thomas Onorato, the main subject of my book, is not really a doorman anymore, so I'm sure he doesn't mind giving up his title). I also profiled Derek in my book--hanging out with him at the doors of Beige and Roxy was definitely more fun than being inside the club--so if you can get your hands on a copy (I think it's out of print but there is an eBook version) there are many juicy stories from his 20+ years-long career.

Here is the link to Musto's interview.

Later,

Glenn

3 days in beautiful Turin, Italy--the city of witches, commies and chocolatiers.

Above: The spire of the Mole Antonelliana--once a Jewish synagogue, now the National Museum of Cinema--peeks out over one of Turin's grand piazzas. The Mole is the tallest (and most surreal) museum in the world.

Dear sweet-toothed Satanic Socialists,

Last month, after my trip to Barcelona for 080 Fashion, I jumped on a pond-hopper and headed over to Turin to visit my friend Barbara. Elegant Turin, the capital of the northern province of Piedmont, is like a heady mix of Paris, Vienna and Rome--without Rome's chaotic traffic and parade of tourists. Besides being the former home of Fiat and the eternal home of Christ's alleged shroud, Turin is also the witchcraft capital of Italy: it's part of the black magic triangle shared by London and San Francisco, and the white triangle with Prague and Lyon, France. Nostradamus, history's most famous seer, lived here in 1556 and Dom Bosco, the mystic who, in 1883, prophesied the building of Brasilia, was from Turin. Legend has it that beneath the city is a vast network of tunnels and catacombs that Turin's witches, past and present, use for their secret activities.

Above: Two views from Barbara's apartment--wonderful ochre-colored 18th-century houses line the street. Barbara lives in a neighborhood that is populated by both aristocratic families and young left-wing activists. I'm not sure how well they all get along or what percentage of them are witches. (For the record, Barbara is basically in the left-wing camp....one of those modern Marxists whose bookshelf is crammed with books by both Candace Bushnell and Fidel Castro).

I love the elevator shaft in Barbara's building.

Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts or.....an exquisite 18th-century cafe with gorgeous Venetian chandeliers, fresco-painted ceilings, perfect coffee and artisanal desserts? Which do you prefer? (Then again, Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts are probably not owned by the Mafia).

Barbara and I outside Al Souri where we met her friends for apertivos and vino.

Me and Francesco

Apertivo e vino time at Al Souri

Later, we had an excellent dinner at Trattoria Ala, a traditional Tuscan trattoria. Among the many things I ate (including a plethora of apertivo platters which whizzed around the table with dizzying frequency) was this heaping plate of homemade tortellini al ragu. For dessert I had something that I can only describe as chocolate flan which I still dream about every night. It was an orgasm on a plate.

Dinner at Trattoria Ala. The woman in grey is my friend Elena. She was also one of the publicists on the 2004 trip to the Alps and brought up the story about how I was freaking out about the avalanche alert in a valley near Alagna. (It was HIGH that day!)

Antonello and Franceso

I was very amused by Antonello's many raucous anecdotes.

Above: Let Them Eat Shit. Haute-bourgeoise eatery, Ristorante del Cambio

Funny story (for those who missed the discussion on my FaceBook page): While we were having our traditional dinner at this very homey trattoria, a revolution-of-sorts was raging on the other side of town at a very swank, very expensive restaurant called Ristorante del Cambio, which has been open since 1757. On my first trip to Turin in 2004--a press trip to visit the nearby Italian Alps--Barbara, in her role as publicist, took me to dinner there. The meal was a whirlwind of top-tier champagne, foie gras, caviar, fritto misto which included several deep-fried, vital cow and antelope organs, and desserts the size of Marie Antoinette's bouffant. (I get nostalgic thinking about how I acquired my first case of gout there--because you know I adore the diseases of the upper classes). 

One of the unique details about the restaurant is its view of Turin's City Hall across the street (which you can see in the photo above). There is one seat in the restaurant--the "seat of power"--which affords the best view of the government building. During the 19th century, several of Turin's mayors would sit here during their term, whiling the day away with wine, fricasseed calf brains and idle conversation. If there was some kind of emergency, like a witch who needed to be burned at the stake or a peasant revolt, one of the mayor's pages would stick his head out the window and beckon the mayor back to his more official office. (On the night I dined there, the woman who was the head of the Winter Olympics committee was in the seat of power--of course).

So, on the recent night we were all having our cozy dinner at unpretentious Trattoria Ala, a group of masked anarchists burst into del Cambio during peak dinner time, armed with huge baskets. While screaming anti-rich slogans, the anarchists began flinging shit and bloody animal guts at the well-heeled diners. Yes, you read that right: Shit. And bloody animal organs. One can only imagine the chaos that must have ensued.

The next morning, Barbara's friends and I were poring over the front-page article in one of Turin's papers (which must go to press rather late, because the article was very thorough) and that's when I realized how anti-elitist Barbara's friends are. (Because, I realized, Turin's hip, left-leaning 30-somethings wouldn't normally be caught dead at el Cambio. And in this economic climate, it's just considered extremely gauche to dine there). As we read the article out loud one of Barbara's friends, who works in the restaurant industry, was laughing hysterically and mimicking the imagined reactions of the rich, Chanel-clad women who must have been dripping in (horse? human?) manure as tables laden with chateaubriand and status bags were overturned in the chaos. I joined in by rattling off a list of shit-stained designer outfits that were surely now being schlepped over to dry cleaners all over the city by hapless servants. The anarchist attack would have been a great scene in a film by Luis Bunuel--or John Waters.

Apparently Dante is now being revisited as a nazi? What will those wacky Italian anarchists think of next?

Al Bicerin is one of the most famous places in Turin as it has been serving up a delicious potion of chocolate and caffeine known as the Bicerin since 1763. Barbara dragged me out of bed early one morning so we could meet her father here over a round of Bicerins (I also had a sinfully decadent chocolate-and-hazelnut torte smothered in warm chocolate sauce, so you can imagine the chocolate rush I was on...worth getting dragged out of bed for). At the dawn of the 19th century, the building and interior were renovated and everything inside the cafe--the counter, the marble-topped tables, the wood paneling--are all intact and present in the space today. 

Barbara's father is a brilliant professor and luckily I was all hopped up on chocolate and caffeine because he subjected me to a battery of questions about Obama, Clint Eastwood (Italian intellectuals think Eastwood is a closet leftist. Ditto for Bruce Springsteen), my work as a gonzo journalist (he rattled off a list of all the important works of gonzo, from Hunter S. Thompson to Tom Wolfe), and the oeuvre of Antonioni. 

Behold, a quartet of Bicerins. The recipe to this irresistible concoction has been carefully guarded for centuries. It's a hot mix of espresso, chocolate (the exact nature of the chocolate is part of the carefully guarded secret) and fresh cream which are all layered, and not mixed, in a tall glass (even though "bicerin" technically means "small glass") . If I could, I would bathe in it daily. Legend has it that the drink was invented at Al Bicerin but detractors claim it surfaced earlier, in 1704, at Caffe Fioro, which still stands on the Via Po. (I believe I had my first Bicerin there in 2004 because Al Bicerin was closed on the day of my visit).

After our meeting with Barbara's dad, Barbara's boyfriend, Francesco, picked us up and we all rode over to a rooftop barbeque. Here you can see how close the Italian Alps are to Turin.

Me on the roof enjoying my first cup of Piedmontese red wine--the first of many. We all had to write our names on the plastic cups with a magic marker to avoid confusion (easy to become confused when you're drinking red wine in the Italian afternoon sun!) and I wrote "GAY WOODY ALLEN" on mine. That was the nickname Barbara gave me when we went on the press trip to the Italian Alps in 2004 because she thinks I'm neurotic. A ski trip had been planned and we all went to a ski shop to select our skis--except for me. I nervously wandered around the shop muttering to myself, "I don't want to die like Sonny Bono" and Barbara was like, "Glenn, are you okay? You look very pale!" 

Then we rode to the tippy-top of Monte Rosa, the tallest mountain in the Italian Alps, and I must have looked scared because everyone was laughing at me. Later at the ski lodge atop the mountain, where I was extremely light-headed from the altitude, I had a cup of warm red wine and you can just imagine. Barbara and the rest of the PR team placed me in a coffin and slid me down the mountain. Inexplicably, I woke up several hours later, wearing nothing but a small Frette towel, in the steam room at the Blue Sauna Club.

A view of the Mole from the rooftop barbeque. 

A mini-scandal broke out during the BBQ when everyone began realizing that there was an Iranian and an American at the party. Time for a peace summit! The Iranian woman, Bita, was dragged over to me and suddenly we were surrounded by cameras, including a TV camera (I think someone was making a Godard-esque documentary about the BBQ). We embraced in full view of the cameras to show that there were no hard feelings between our countries (someone should send the footage to Obama so he can see that I'm doing my part for diplomacy). I opined that I thought it was arrogant of the US to tell Iran that they weren't allowed to have a nuclear bomb, but Bita said she thinks her president is just too crazy to get his hands on something like that. The debate didn't go much further due to language barriers. (Will someone please buy me the Rosetta Stone for Italian? I can't afford it).

Barbara and Elisa

The food served at the BBQ was super-yummy: barbequed spare ribs and sausages, bruschetta (nothing like a fresh tomato grown in Italy), grilled eggplant and luscious tiramisu. For some reason, both Barbara and I both forgot to take pictures of the food. I guess we were too busy eating it!

On my third day in Turin I wandered around the city to enjoy the lovely weather and admire the city's beautiful facades. But it wasn't just a day of idle flaneur-ing....I was on a mission: To visit Turin's "dark heart," the focal point of the city's black magic energy.

Turin's so-called "dark heart" is located here, in the Piazza Statuto. At the end of the square is this rather bizarre monument.

The monument, which features a dark angel hovering over men trying to climb to the top, is a memorial to the workers who died building the Frejus Train Tunnel, a tunnel that linked Italy to France by rail. But many denizens of Turin believe the monument also represents something else....something more sinister.

The five-pointed star, a pentagram, on the angel's head is considered a clue that the angel is actually Lucifer himself. A rather beautiful Lucifer, I might add.

The Piazza Statuto has a dark past. The Roman and Medieval-era gallows were located just a few yards beyond the square and the ground beneath the monument is a millenniums-old necropolis. The Romans adhered to the Egyptian philosophy that the west, where the sun sets, is the most appropriate place to bury the dead. Many residents of Turin maintain that a sewer manhole cover near the monument (which I think I found, but there were a few) is actually the entrance to the Gates of Hell. Considering all the evil energy that is said to exist here, there were many Turin residents relaxing during their lunch hour on park benches in the piazza. I rested there for a few minutes and didn't feel uneasy--but then again, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Lucifer.

However, if I had known, I would have visited the "light heart" or positive energy spot of Turin to balance things out. During a night drive, Barbara's boyfriend, Francesco, pointed the spot out to me: a gate entrance in the Piazza Castello, where the Shroud of Turin is publicly displayed. It's said that if one stands between the stone walls of the entrance, they receive a jolt of positive white magic energy. I wonder if the kick is as strong as the one I got from drinking a Bicerin...

My next stop was the Piazza CLN (Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale). This was actually my third time visiting this piazza, but on previous visits, it was always under partial construction. The piazza is famous for the two fountains and statues (whose feet point at each other) that represent Turin's two rivers: the Po and the Dora. The male statue (above) is Po.

And here is Dora. If you're a fan of Dario Argento's 1975 giallo film "Profondo Rosso" ("Deep Red"), you'll recognize the piazza as one of the film's more distinctive locations. (The entire film was shot in Turin). This is the piazza where David Hemmings' character witnesses the murder of a Swedish psychic in an apartment overlooking the square, to the left of the Po statue. A few yards back from that spot is where Argento erected a '40s America-style diner/bar based on the Edward Hopper painting "Nighthawks." Because Argento used this location as one of his most famous sets, Piazza CLN is often referred to as the "Piazza Profondo Rosso" by Turin residents.

A day without running into Perseus holding Medusa's head is like a day without sunshine....

These gnarly trees had a bit of a witchy vibe.

So on my last night in Turin, Barbara announced that we would be having dinner at a "clubhouse" where she and her friends went on most Monday nights. I can't remember what she said exactly that made me respond (jokingly): "Haha, sounds like a COMMUNIST clubhouse to me!" and "Will we be having dinner with the anarchists who stormed del Cambio the other night?" Barbara was all like, "No, no, no! It's not at all communist! It's just a laid-back place that we all like to go to." I believed her until we arrived at said clubhouse and contrary evidence immediately began rearing its red head....

Exhibit A: I think this speaks for itself, yeah?

Exhibit B: Agitprop poster with a quote from Karl Marx

Exhibit C: Painting depicting Marxist-Leninist rebels engaged in battle

Exhibit D (my favorite example): Even the wine was Communist! Check out the Workers Unite! style logo on the label. Needless to say, this wine was terrible. (We switched to something more palatable). I can't remember what I had--I think it was a northern-style pasta dish, some thin slices of deliberately fatty pork on slices of toasted bread and a big salad--but the food was quite good.

When I spotted this photo on the wall, I exclaimed, "I'm a big Elvis Presley fan!" and everyone stopped, stared at me, and then laughed for several long minutes. No, this is not Elvis--it's someone named Fabrizio De Andre, a singer, songwriter and revered intellectual (and a Communist, no doubt). A recent exhibition in Genova, where the singer was from, celebrated his life and work.

And OF COURSE Satan herself made an appearance at the Communist Clubhouse....Ronald Reagan and Jesse Helms must have been spinning in their graves that night!

On the drive home. Francesco took me to see this metal sculpture which was designed by my favorite architect of all time, Oscar Niemeyer . However, I'm not finding any information about it on the web. Does anyone know more about this piece? Behind the sculpture, one can see the old Roman walls and gate of the city.

I was really spooked out when I walked over to get a picture of the Roman walls. I heard strange noises coming from the other side of the gate and, fearing that I would be the next victim of a Satanic sacrifice, I high-tailed it back to Francesco's car.

Our final stop was a very sinister-looking apartment building that is adorned with dozens of dragon statuary and other wicked details like bronze salamander door handles. Sorry my photos aren't better, my flash was not doing a good job of capturing the dragon details. I totally want to live in this building!

I hope you enjoyed my bloggy tour of Turin--there is really so much more to see but I had to leave on the 4th day for Seoul. (Barbara was a fantastic host, btw!) Thanks for reading!

Ciao,

Glenn Belverio

Barcelona, March 2009

Dear fellow flaneurs & flaneuses,

I found some extra photos from my recent trip to Barcelona that I wanted to share with you.

Writers Carole Pope and Mark Simpson 

Clams and white bean soup in Barceloneta

Monsters from the deep

Coming up: HIghlights from my trip to Turin.

Later,

Glenn