The oil may still be gushing into the Gulf and making its way up to the north-east coast (and England!) but at least we had picture-perfect weather on Saturday for my favorite summer event, The Mermaid Parade. I've been attending this Coney Island parade on-and-off since the late '80s and am happy to report that it hasn't changed all that much. It's still wonderfully rag-tag and eccentric with a refreshing absence of any kind of corporate branding or advertising. (It's also the largest art parade in the US.)
The big changes in Coney Island that we bohemian types have been fretting about for five years were not all that bad so far: The old Astroland was torn down last year and has been replaced by a sparkling new Luna Park (the name comes from an early-1900s incarnation of Coney Island's amusement park). Thankfully it's no glossy, corporate Disney production but I think it's nice the kids have brand-new rides. (And of course, the Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel, both historical landmarks, remain, as does the disused but refurbished Parachute Jump.) I was dismayed to hear that the Shore Hotel/Theater, where Tod Browning's "Freaks" premiered in 1932, has been earmarked for demolition as are a few other landmark buildings.
But onto happier thoughts: Here are my highlights from this year's parade...
Of course our first stop was Ruby's Bar & Grill on the boardwalk (the space was a speakeasy & underground cabaret in the '20s. After a long stint as a Hebrew National Deli starting in 1934, it became Ruby's in 1975. Without it, Coney Island would have no soul.) We loved this trio of bathing beauties.
Raw clams & beer at Ruby's is a long-standing Mermaid tradition for me.
Another not-so-great change in Coney is the old boardwalk being torn up and replaced with concrete. (Update: I received this message from Ruby's: "The boardwalk is not being replaced with Concret. They are reinforcing with concret then the natural Honduras wood goes on top. The area from Keyspan to Cyclone will always be the natural wood.") The parade ran along the old boardwalk side, with a fenced-off construction area cutting the width of area for parade watchers in half. Feeling claustrophobic, we fled to the parking lot where many of the marchers were being siphoned off....
...and I ran smack dab into this year's Queen Mermaid & King Neptune: Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed. Lou eschewed the traditional crown for a cap from Totonno's pizza parlour. (More on that later.)
One of the main themes at the parade this year was--surprise!--the BP oil spill disaster. Oil-covered mermaids were legion, as were agit-prop placards (BP = Boycott Pollution).
There were even oil-covered Somalian pirates....
This was my favorite: a zombie mermaid whose flesh had been dissolved by the oil spill.
The protest slogans were a bit....I don't know....it is just me, or are they a bit pointless? Would BP care if a mermaid swam in their toilet? Would a mermaid fit inside a toilet? And if they could, what would that achieve?
Meanwhile, back at Ruby's.....
....a spontaneous mermaid mosh pit broke out.
No, I didn't travel back to 1940 to take this photo of the Cyclone...but wouldn't that be grand if I could?
I talked everyone into riding the Cyclone (Corey & I stayed on for a second ride.) Here's Christine on her post-ride high!
Exhausted and starving, we made a pilgrimage to Totonno's Pizza on Neptune Avenue. It's considered the best pizza in the US. Opened in 1924, it is the oldest continuously operating pizzeria in the country.
On our way there, we were told by a local: "They have a LOT of attitude there....so make sure you give it right back to them!" When we arrived there was a long line of Brooklyn hipsters waiting to get in. Inside people were lingering over cups of melted ice, couples hogging tables that could seat six, a lone woman waiting over a half hour for a take-out pizza taking up a table that seated four. The staff could have cared less about the people waiting outside. I didn't mind waiting (we bought some cans of Foster's at a nearby gas station and sipped away in line); I just thought the restaurant's laid-back, almost passive-aggressive attitude was hilarious.
Of course, not everyone is as mellow as I am. One outraged guy went inside and started loudly complaining about the seating arrangements and the long wait. He was swiftly kicked to the curb by a tough-as-nails waitress who looked like she had seen it ALL.
Next was a bleached-blonde, leathery junkie woman who, despite the fact that she lived in Coney Island most of her life, was flabbergasted by everything that was happening around her. "Did you see the shit that's going on up on that damn boardwalk?! There are a bunch of fucking MERMAIDS running around up there!" And she wasn't trying to be funny. Then she was appalled by the wait to get into the pizzeria and went in and complained. She nearly escaped being turned into sausage by the chef.
The pizza , cooked in a coal-burning brick oven, was definitely worth the wait. The thin crust was heavenly, with a smoky taste, and the pie was delightfully grease-free. All the ingredients tasted very fresh. We wolfed down two pies.
Corey digs into his slice.
Nancy contemplates the beauty and simplicity of a plain slice.
I of course wanted sausage and mushrooms on mine and as you can see, I look like a maniac eating it.
We burned off some calories by walking back to the entrance of the new Luna Park. It's designed to look like the original Luna Park entrance.
A postcard image of Luna Park in 1913.
This 105-year-old film clip starts off slow but it has many rewards...including a live camel ride and a woman mysteriously collapsing on the beach.
Above: Diane at the SCOPE cocktail at Quality Meats
Dear Readers,
My friend Diane Pernet was in town last week for SCOPE and we had a very Warholian afternoon at Kelly Cutrone's loft where MTV interviewed Diane & Kelly about the Oscars and Lady Gaga's new "Telephone" video.
OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! Diane & I ready ourselves for our next victim.
At the cocktail, I was delighted to meet fellow Shaded View contributor Dustin Pittman. We chatted for a long time and of course he had the best stories about photographing Mick Jagger at a show in the early '70s and really that was just the tip of the Chanel iceberg. After the cocktail he took me to a party for Michael Musto...it was just like the old days again.
Joan Rivers hosted Michael Musto's 125th anniversary as a scribe at the Village Voice. By the way, did you hear about Joan's date dropping dead in front of her during dinner at Le Cirque recently? Seriously. She made a joke about how it was the first time he saw her in the light so it was too much of a shock for his heart. But really, having a date drop dead at Le Cirque? That is SO glamorous. I am jalouse.
Dirty Martini came out to do a little dance to commemorate Musto's 225 years in the nightlife biz. At one point during the night I rested my champagne flute on what I thought was a nifty end table made out of faux-petrified wood. I later learned that it was Cindy Adams.
Earlier on the evening Diane & I had tea with our friend Pierrot Carrilero at the Tribeca Grand Hotel
On Monday, I had breakfast with Diane at Pain Quotidien before popping in at Kelly Cutrone's. We thought it would be a short visit but we ended up staying for 4 hours.
Kelly relaxing in her loft
Kelly & Diane in Kelly's bed being prepped for their MTV interview
I was in Rio again last month at the invitation of ABIT (The Brazilian Textile & Apparel Industry Association) to attend the Carnaval parades at the Sambadrome. My full reports can be read here on A Shaded View on Fashion:
My friends at Station Service, a Paris showroom that reps cutting-edge designers, sent me these gorgeous shots of Rihanna wearing a dress by one of their French couturiers, Alexandre Vauthier, on the UK show "X Factor."
Vauthier honed his skills working for Parisian fashion masters Jean Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler. During Paris Couture Week last January, Vauthier presented his first couture collection at La Maison des Metallos. Electronica artist Roisin Murphy walked in the show and wears his creations during public appearances.
Alexandre & Roisin
While I was in Paris this past September, I couldn't resist modeling one of Vauthier's couture pieces--a sumptuous fox-fur cape with gold beading by the prestigious house of Lesage--during a visit to the Station Service showroom.
I'm in Paris now, preparing for my lecture on my writing career at the Paris Fashion Institute. Last week I had the pleasure of attending another edition of 080 Barcelona Fashion in vibrant Catalonia. My coverage can be read here: A Shaded View on Fashion.
Au Revoir,
Glenn
Dree Hemingway backstage at 080 Barcelona Fashion.
While the ghost of Julia Child is busy slathering gargantuan amounts of butter over previously neurotic & anorexic New York, I thought I'd take things up a few notches with a recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks. Back when I was in Nashville, reporting for ZOO & A Shaded View on Fashion in 2006, Loretta Lynn's charming publicist gave me a copy of the superb "You're Cookin' It Country," a delightful collection of Crisco-coated recipes and hillbilly anecdotes from the Queen of Country.
I have to admit, I've only tried one or two of the recipes. When I had my first big party at my East Village apartment, for the Autumn Equinox in 2007, I made Loretta's White Bean Dip and it was a big hit (the rosemary is what makes it). But the most intriguing--and in-your-face authentic--recipe in the book is Butcher Holler Possum.
"At night, Mommy would go out and set traps," Loretta writes. "She'd take one of the kids with her. Sometimes she took me, but most of the time she'd take the oldest boy--Junior, my eldest brother. They would go out with a light; one of them would track them dadgum animals down, and she'd set that trap. She usually got a possum or a rabbit or a coon every time we went out, so we'd have meat probably once a week."
"Possum is a different tasting meat than anything I've ever tasted. To me, it was kind of oily, greasy, but Daddy loved it. Mommy would have to cook it like three hours first, because it's tough. Then she'd take it out and put it in a pan. She'd peel the sweet potatoes, and she'd put 'em around the possum. And when the sweet potatoes was done, so was the possum. That's what Daddy loved."
BUTCHER HOLLER POSSUM
Makes 6 Servings
1 good-size possum
salt & pepper
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup chopped chestnuts
1/2 stick butter, thinly sliced
4 sweet potatoes, cubed
or cut into 1/2-inch-thick pieces
1 cup water
1/2 cup lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 350F. Skin and clean the possum by removing all the innards. Scrape the inside clean and scald in boiling water. Season the inside with salt and pepper to taste. Mix the breadcrumbs, applesauce, and chestnuts in a bowl. Stuff the breadcrumb mixture and butter slices inside the possum. Place in a Dutch oven. Add the sweet potatoes, water, and lemon juice. Bake in the oven until tender, basting often.
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, DoYou 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,ontheviaRoma, 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 20th 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 DeepRed 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 (Argento collaborated with Romero 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:
