Yabba dabba doo! Moi at the Indian Canyons Hiking Trails in Palm Springs. Photo: Sameer Reddy
Dear jetsters,
Elsa Peretti said it best: "Travel is important for your mind." Art, architecture, nature, friends, fashion, food and the occasional dalliance—I had so many reasons to head to the airport in 2018. It began in the late winter with my return to relaxing Palm Springs.
For the first half of my trip, I stayed at my favorite hotel in Palm Springs, the Alcazar. Here, you won’t be bothered by cocktail waitrons or distracting raw-bar towers. Drinks are DIY from the petite lobby and the best breakfast spot in Palm Springs, Cheeky’s, is a 5-second walk away (the hotel owns it). Cheeky’s is the only place in the world where I will eat bacon, and once you’ve sampled the ever-changing bacon flight (Beeler’s apple cinnamon, anyone?), you’ll know why. After a beaker full of the red-purple lusciousness that is their blood-orange juice, you’ll stroll down North Palm Canyon Drive, throw your arms up to the Sun God while exclaiming “California!” and wonder why you continue your real life of stress and toxicity in New York City.
After an idyllic breakfast at Cheeky’s with the painter Scott Neary and his ex-NYC pal Diane, we piled into the convertible and drove to the “House of Tomorrow” aka Elvis and Priscilla’s honeymoon house.
Me and Scott stockpiling Vitamin D in preparation of the return to frozen New York.
Moving from the blinding-white austerity of the Alcazar to that kitsch riot known as The Parker Hotel is like being airlifted from a Zen monastery and dropped into a Long Island flea market.
Designed by Jonathan Adler, The Parker boasts a carpet sourced from the creators of the carpet in Kubrick's The Shining. It was fun staying here for for two nights, even if there was an eerie undertone of dystopian luxury.
My rather secluded room had a lovely view of the lush gardens.
It may have been 85F outside, but that didn't stop The Parker from having a roaring fire going at all times in the rear lounge. That's Michael and his twin brother Patrick McDonald, the Northern Hemisphere's most famous dandy, hanging out in the background before we headed out to their favorite Mexican restaurant in Palm Desert for lunch.
Pity I didn't take more photos of the McDonalds but there were plenty of Facebook live videos, including our trip to tiki heaven Tropicale where we dined with our friend Carlos King before taking in a show by 1970s disco legend France Joli, of "Come to Me" fame, at the gay club next door.
During my stay at The Parker, I hung out with my (camera-shy) friend Sameer Reddy, visiting from LA. At his suggestion we took a long, invigorating hike through the Indian Canyons.
I absolutely adore desert flowers.
After the hike, Sameer and I repaired to The Parker's Lemonade Stand for frosty libations and hot gossip.
I'm always in Rome—at least that's what Nicholas, the head bartender at The Locarno Hotel, always says of me—and indeed, there I was again at the end of June for the summer edition of AltaRoma and to visit friends.
This edition of AltaRoma was held at the storied Cinecittà Studios. These recreations of the temples of Jupiter and Venus were built for HBO's Rome. (They made me chuckle because whenever anyone asks me if I was raised Catholic I tell them that my paternal Grandfather was not Christian—he preferred to commune with the pantheon of ancient Roman gods instead.)
On our first day at Cinecittà, Diane Pernet and I were taken by curator Clara Tosi Pamphili to Makinarium, the award-winning special visual effects studio, founded in 2014, that produces lifelike creations for TV and film, as well as those famous baby dragons and severed heads for Gucci’s Fall 2018 runway show.
During my first evening at Cinecittà Studios for this edition of AltaRoma, we were invited to the premiere of La Moda Proibita, a documentary about couturier Roberto Capucci, at Sala Fellini. During the cocktail I was thrilled to meet costume designer Milena Canonero, resplendent in stylish knots of ethereal white.
Canonero was born in Turin (where I'll be visiting this February) and grew up in Genoa, and designed the costumes for three of my favorite Stanley Kubrick films: Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Barry Lyndon (clip below for the scene that was naturally lit only with candles). She won an Academy Award for her work on Barry Lyndon and also picked up Oscars for Chariots of Fire, Marie Antoinette and The Grand Budapest Hotel. When my friend Susan Sabet (above left) from Pashion, a magazine based in Cairo, said to the designer, “I want to interview you for my magazine,” Canonero replied, “No, no…I want to interview YOU!”
Lebanese trans woman couture designer Robert Abi Nader showed ghostly glamour at the 17th-century Biblioteca Casanatense.
Lupo Lanzara, Deputy Chairman of the Accademia Costume e Moda, Diane, Paulo Mariotti of Brazilian Vogue, Rebecca Voight and Alessio de Navasques during a tour of the Accademia.
As humiliated Italian World Cup fans gathered in piazzas before wide-screen TVs, my friend Consuelo Aranyi and I enjoyed marinated zucchini, raw artichoke salad and rosé from Israel in the Jewish Ghetto.
My pal Rinaldo Rocco—the actor and screenwriter who was just back from walking the red carpet at the Shanghai International Film Festival—invited me to his rooftop terrace where we caught up on a full year’s worth of global anecdotes over a delicious dinner of figs, octopus and tomatoes the color of rubies.
On my last night in Rome, Nicholas made me a heroic martini at the Locarno, my favorite hotel in Italy where I always stay.
"Travel is important for your mind." —Elsa Peretti
Gold rush: It's always a thrill to return to Vienna where I'm invited to cover MQ Vienna Fashion Week for A Shaded View on Fashion every September.
The opening night extravaganza was a best-of Austrian designers.
The Queen of the Catwalks: MQVFW co-curator and my friend Zigi Mueller-Matyas!
A delightful lunch at the home and atelier of Vienna-based Swiss artist Nives Widauer: Moi avec Champagne, Nives, my publicist pal Elisabeth Muth, New York’s one-and-only Chip Duckett of Spin Cycle and Werner Greigertisch of Kracher Weinlaubenhof wines.
Nives' Syrian chef friend prepared a delightful vegetarian lunch for us, with wonderful Austrian breads.
Just about every day in Vienna, I had lunch at Glacis Beisl. Favored by locals, this garden patio restaurant is hiding in plain sight, tucked away in a corner of the Museumsquartier. On this day, I had an appetizer of Styrian pumpkin mousse, with squash salad, all dressed with Kürbiskernöl. I always eat meat here and my favorite dishes are beef goulash, blood sausage, wiener schnitzel and their famous dumplings stuffed with pork cracklings.
I was again blessed with a suite at my favorite hotel in Vienna, Le Méridien, where the illuminated headboard had me galloping off to dreamland.
No, it wasn't the legend of Robin Hood that drew me to Nottingham, England (even though Errol Flynn's tights loom large in my imagination): my 1993 video Glennda and Camille Do Downtown, co-starring feminist pugilist Camille Paglia, is featured in a major exhibition of women and queer artists—Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance—at Nottingham Contemporary, and I flew in to attend the opening.
Journalists view my video during the exhibition's press preview.
The wall text I wrote for my piece.
Moi on opening night sporting my very limited-edition Rick Owens x Vaginal Davis shirt, a gift from Lia Gangitano of Participant Gallery.
Yes, folks, that is the one-and-only Mark Simpson, author of Saint Morrissey, Anti-Gay, Male Impersonators et al, who drove down from northern England to attend the press preview and opening night party with me. We also did some sightseeing around Nottingham, including an amusing tour of 18th-century prison cells and gallows at the Justice Museum, and lots of pub visits (because the weather turned cold, rainy and miserable—in England, whaat?!—the day after the opening).
I hadn’t seen Mark since my 37th birthday dinner at Antica Pesa in Rome, in January 2016—an evening that shall live in economic infamy!
It was a delight meeting Matt Carter, who works for my London video distributor LUX, and curator Cédric Fauq at the opening night party!
The entrance to one of Nottingham’s most famous buildings, an Art Nouveau masterpiece from the early 1900s. (The ground floor houses a Zara—groan!—and I’m afraid that this magnificent building is now officially known as The Zara Building. The architect was Albert Nelson Bromley.)
"Travel is useful, it exercises the imagination." —Louis-Ferdinand Cèline
The Castle Rock
No visit to Nottingham is complete without a pint at Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, a pub—which purports to be England’s oldest —that’s carved into medieval caves. (Mark referred to it disparagingly as "The Medieval Times Restaurant.")
An outstanding venison pie, with bacon, red wine and shallots mixed in with the luscious chunks of deer meat, served with mash, mushy pies and gravy, at Pieminister.
Wollaton Hall: Grand on the outside, tatty on the inside (it houses a rather shop-worn natural history museum).
Thank you for taking this trip with me. See you somewhere, in some time zone, for cocktails and effervescent gossip in 2019, dolls.
Love,
Glenn Belverio