Confessions from the Velvet Ropes

My Saints Tree-Trimming Party, December 7, 2019. Photos by Drew Gardner. Text & additional photos by Glenn Belverio

Ellen Sampson & Alexis Romano

Photographer Catherine Talese, lesbian rock icon Carole Pope, Terry & writer Katie Degentesh as Saint Scholastica

Fashion designer Ela Erdogan, fashion icon Lauren Ezersky & your host, Glenn Belverio (wearing my John the Baptist tee)

Living saint Chay Costello, Swiss artist Nives Widauer & makeup artist Virna Smiraldi

Filmmaker Allison Berg & Catherine Talese

Filmmaker Allison Berg & Catherine Talese

 

Dear Saintly Sinners,

What do you get when you combine halos, Catholic accoutrements, a Biblical flood of prosecco, sacred and profane gossip, sanctified hors d'oeuvres, beautifully rendered ornaments and an international crowd par excellence (the most important ingredient)? Answer: a party far more interesting than the Met Gala for Heavenly Bodies—it's the latest edition of my annual tree-trimming bash!

The theme for this year's already-legendary fête, Saints, was chosen by my MoMA colleague Chay Costello. We collaborated on the dress code:

St. John the Baptist headless couture, sexy Saint Sebastian arrow accessories, Joan of Arc melting hearing aids, Buñuel surrealist saint and Jodorowsky Holy Mountain acid trips, Saint Nicholas and Krampus mud wrestling, Danny Kaye Saint Jude cocktail attire, nun looks a-go-go: Anita Ekberg killer nun, Sally Field flying nun, The Nuns punk-rock DIY ready-to-wear, Nina Hagen Nunsexmonkrock runway realness, Saint Dolly Parton real Christianity Opry glamour, Edna St. Vincent Millay boozy melees, Padre Pio stigmata realness, Saint Lucy eyeballs worn as earrings, brooches or pasties, Lili St. Cyr non-stop burlesque action, Vatican Swiss Guard uniforms for butch lesbians, reliquary zombie re-animations, 1980s S&M leather looks from The Saint club, halos, wings and harps for holier-than-thou attention whores, and Saint Teresa multiple spiritual orgasms.

Now, onto the party....

A mysterious flapper accompanied by her patron saints: writers and curators Ellen Sampson and Alexis Romano.

Chay Costello was inspired by the stigmata of Saint Padre Pio, a distant relative of hers.

Billy Miller of Straight to Hell fame.

Legendary East Village artists Peter Cramer and Jack Waters of Allied Productions and Naked Eye Cinema fame.

Louis Armstrong by Dana Schein

North West Kardashian by my MoMA colleague Miranda Lim. My prediction for the get-go has been that he will one day launch a fragrance called North by North West.

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Virna Smiraldi's ornament was inspired by the Blood of the San Gennaro Miracle in Naples. On the feast day of San Gennaro, believers gather to pray and follow specific rituals, to bring about the miracle that is the liquefaction of the saint’s blood. The “miracle” of liquefaction takes place inside the Duomo, when the substance in the cruets dissolves into a vivid red liquid. The event is celebrated on the first Sunday of May, then again on the 19^th of September, and also in December.

Eerily, a few days after my party, Virna's ornament leapt from my tree and landed on the kitchen floor with a loud POP. The dark "blood" slowly spread across the shattered glass and glitter, forming a large viscous pool. It was very Dario Argento art direction.

A couture-clad Barbie with a Jesus brooch. Ornament by Kyle P. Wagner of the National Arts Club.

St. Elmo's Fire by my cousin Kathy Garrigan.

Saint Andy by Corey Sabourin.

My MoMA colleague Lisa Carr brought this owl ornament because "Glenn is wise." Aw, shucks!

Creator unknown. (Meaning, I can't remember!)

Another Saint Andy, this one by writer Janice Eidus and her husband John Kastan.

Creator unknown.

Two views of an ornament celebrating the 1960s TV series The Saint starring Roger Moore.

Another Roger Moore Saint ornament with a young Yves Saint Laurent on the flipside.

Ornament by Vienna-based Swiss artist Nives Widauer.

Two views of the Saint Catherine of Siena ornament created by my MoMA colleague Cathy Citarella. Yes, dolls, the severed, mummified head of St. Catherine is on public view at the Basilica San Domenico in Siena. I saw it with my own eyes during a day trip to Siena back in 2003, during a press trip in Tuscany which involved a multi-town tour of Chianti Classico vineyards, punctuated by a lavish dinner party at the 12th-century Castello di Brolio, to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of Brolio, land of the Ricasoli Barons.

"Next we are off to Castello di Cacchiano's wine tasting room that is housed in a former 18th-century prison," I wrote while living and working in Hong Kong as a guest editor for WestEast magazine. "As I noted the day-counting marks on the wall left behind by assorted criminals in 1781, we sampled Cacchiano's incomparable vin santo ('wine of Saints,' known also as 'wine for meditation'), a nectar so sublime that I would, if I could, bathe in it daily."

Creator unknown.

Which saint is this? "Whichever one you want to be," said this ornament's creator, fashion designer Ela Erdogan.

Creator unknown.

Another St. Elmo's Fire ornament, this one by Christy Nyiri. And now it's time for me to admit I have never seen St. Elmo's Fire—however, I did meet Judd Nelson (and Anthony Michael Hall) in the Michael Todd Room at Palladium in 1986.

Saint Elvis by Billy Miller.

That's gotta hurt! St. Loempius by painter Scott Neary.

Creator unknown.

More Catholic torture porn! Saint Agatha by Suzanne Batmanghelichi.

Santo Orgasm by Peter Cramer and Jack Waters.

Ornament by Alexis Romano. Apparently there's a pannettone inside there—I guess I better eat it soon before it descends into reliquary decrepitude!

Saint Nicholas Cage by MoMA colleague Nemtsov.

Saint Padre Pio by Chay Costello.

Creator unknown.

Another Saint Nicholas Cage ornament? How on earth does he get to be a saint? Snap out of it!

The following photos are by Drew Gardner (my official event photographer):

My MoMA colleague Audrey Gascho and Virna Smiraldi

Katie as Saint Scholastica looks on as Nives Widauer shows off her pussy tie.

Earth angels: Catherine Talese & Chay Costello

We are family: Carly Sommerstein chats with my paternal cousin Kathy Garrigan.

Terry telling tall tales to the gals.

It takes two: Rob & Chay

Saint Scholastica (Katie Degentesh) makes a beeline for the bar. I love the trompe l’oeil t-shirt!

We are living in the digital age (even if my apartment is a time warp of old New York…)

She’s into leather: Lauren Ezersky with Ela Erdogan.

Quaff, baby, quaff! Cathy celebrates the moment as Jack Kastan looks on.

The radiant Suzanne Batmanghelichi.

Moi delivering Saint Elvis to the tree.

As I am often happily marooned in the ’90s, I was a big fan of Allison’s Amanda de Cadenet look (remember that night she and Courtney Love went out in matching ensembles?)

Writers Corey Sabourin & Nancy Stout.

What is Christy Nyiri saying to Catherine Talese?! (We love Catherine’s pendant.)

Janice Eidus in a Warholian mood in my Mao Room.

Artist Dana Schein with graphic design guru Christy Nyiri.

Giddy-up, cowboy! Saul Arber & Catherine Talese.

Nancy having a rap session on my bed with painter Scott Neary.

Alexis Romano partaking in the holy sacrament that is my famed radis farcis au chèvre.

South American chanteuse Carlota Gurascier and her pal David.

Nives and Saul

Josh Casey of MoMA Design Store holds onto his makeshift crown.

Moi, Katie & Carlota

Alexis & Dana

Nives & Alenia

Katie & my MoMA colleague Lisa Carr

And a few more of my shots…

Chay's husband Rob channeled Saint Sebastian via Steve Martin's A Wild and Crazy Guy.

Glennda Orgasm archivist Stevin Michels and artist Dana Schein.

Alenia in—you guessed it—The Mao Room!

Josh Casey, king for a day? Almost!

The ever-ebullient Lisa Carr loved meeting Peter and Jack.

Found under my tree the next morning: an Eve Kitten Clock designed by Nancy Bacich!

Not sure who brought the beautiful Saint Ziggy candle...the Greek Orthodox icon of my favorite saint, John the Baptist, was picked up during my 2008 trip to a fashion week in Thessaloniki.

Merry Christmas,

Glenn Belverio

2018: My year in jet-setting photos. By Glenn Belverio

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

 

 

 

My Women Heroes, Villains, Vamps & Tramps Tree-Trimming Party, December 8, 2018, by Glenn Belverio. Photos by Glenn Belverio & Drew Gardner

Once again, New York City's most notable demimonde descended on my East Village apartment for the annual pagan ritual of decorating my Christmas tree, and to engage in tipsy debauchery, spirited debate, salacious gossip and mutual admiration. Like every year, the guest list was carefully assembled and vetted ( this time with consultation by committee) to bring together the most dynamic, intelligent and stylish creatures possible. (Or, as one guest quipped: "One timely bomb at this shindig would wipe out most of the extant counter culture.")

The theme I chose this year was Women Heroes, Villains, Vamps & Tramps, inspired partly by the  exhibition of feminist and queer art at Nottingham Contemporary,  Still I Rise (where my video "Glennda and Camille Do Downtown" is now on view), and partly by the current feminist zeitgeist.

A few guests rose to the challenge of my dress code, while others used it as inspiration for their ornaments:

Mary Shelley cold-shoulder duchess satin gowns, Jacqueline Susann savvy and Pucci dresses, Lucy Ricardo as “the Wicked City Woman,” live snakes worn as jewelry à la the Marchesa Casati, Angela Davis righteous radicalism, Vaginal Davis ferocious shrimping action, Celia Sanchez guerrilla chic, Jayne County punk rock glamour, Camille Paglia gender-bending Napoleon costumes, Ruth Bader Ginsburg chutzpah, P.I.G. (Politically Involved Girls) pandemonium, Madame Mao mayhem, Wendy O. Williams mohawks and chainsaws, Jane Fonda Viet Cong helmets, Kate Bush interpretive dancing, Yoko Ono cathartic wailing, Dorothy Parker dipsomania, Dorothy Height hats, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Democratic Socialist solidarity, Marlene Dietrich anti-Nazi activism, Elizabeth Hawes radical ready-to-wear, Lina Wertmüller white eyeglasses, Grace Jones Haring body paint, Carole Pope lesbian rock ‘n roll runway realness, Ann Magnuson magnetism and Emma Goldman nonstop ecstatic revolutionary dancing.

And now on to the party....

When David Johansen of New York Dolls and Buster Poindexter fame showed up for my party with his uber-cool wife, my friend Mara Hennessey, I literally almost fainted. We chatted about his dinner at Jade Island—an early-1970s-era Polynesian kitsch mecca in Staten Island (where Johansen is from)—with Anthony Bourdain, on No Reservations. ("I'd never even been there before until Anthony invited me." Did you like it? I wanted to know.  "YOU'LL like it!" he replied after a dubious glance at the string of plastic tiki lights in my kitchen.)

Later, I handed David one of the homemade cheese puffs my friend Alenia made. "What do you think?" I asked hopefully. He took a bite, grimaced slightly and announced, "I think these are from the Perry Como cookbook!"

 

Mara Hennessey hand-made this ornament which depicts Leigh Bowery and Trojan at Taboo, Bowery's mid-'80s club in London. I told Mara and David the story about the night Bruce LaBruce and I met Leigh Bowery, in 1994 (a few months before he died) at a club night Michael Schmidt was doing in the old Boy Bar space on St. Mark's Place (I think Schmidt's party was called Cocksucker). Bowery was wearing a spiked German helmet and a crinoline ball gown, with camouflage makeup. After we shook Bowery's Lurex-gloved hand, LaBruce quipped, "We've just been introduced to a spectacle." (I still remember, quite vividly, Bowery spinning around the dance floor like a whirling dervish, raising his Pickelhelm heavenward, as the DJ blasted the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen.")

In my 2006 book Confessions from the Velvet Ropes, I recount the night, in 1987, when I witnessed Bowery causing a seismic shift at a club called Savage, where he debuted his lightbulbs-in-the-ears look and profoundly influenced the future ensembles of the Club Kids in attendance.

 

Fashion legend Lauren Ezersky was head-to-toe in Rick Owens.

 

Lauren's friend, the fashion designer Ela Erdogan made this couture-inspired ornament. Ela was a delightful party guest but somehow managed to elude our cameras.

 

Dan Callahan, author of many movie-star bios (Barbara Stanwyck, Vanessa Redgrave, The Art of American Screen Acting) came dressed as Joan of Arc, complete with REAL sword!

 

Dan's ornament was an homage to Ingrid Bergman's portrayal of Joan of Arc.

 

Glennda Orgasm archivist Stevin Azo Michels chatted with Mara Hennessey's daughter, Leah Hennessey, who only happens to be the hottest underground playwright and stage actress in New York City right now. Her brilliant play Slash, co-written and co-acted by Emily Allan, has a buzz that's getting louder and louder by the second. It features a brilliant satirical  reenactment of the early '90s catfight between Susan Sontag and my pal Camille Paglia.

 

 

The Paris Review’s Ben Shields (who came costumed as Camille Paglia as Napoleon at 8 years old) and artist Dana Schein.

 

Transgressive literary titan Bruce Benderson, Ben and fashion designer Nile Cymlo. Nile's private fashion presentations at her Chelsea Hotel salon are the high point of every New York Fashion Week.

 

Ben Shields' ornament depicted the medieval Brunhilde being torn asunder by galloping horses.

 

Dana Schein's ornament was an homage to the polarizing Judith Butler. (I'm not a fan!)

 

Fashion designer Lola Faturoti, performance-art legend Penny Arcade and Bruce Benderson.

 

Bruce Benderson's ornament celebrates Shirley Stoler as Martha Beck, the homicidal obese nurse in the 1970 midnight-movie cult classic The Honeymoon Killers.

 

Stoler and her co-star Tony Lo Bianco.

 

My friend the makeup artist Virna Smiraldi is recovering from surgery and could not make it up my stairs—but Virna's friend Penny Arcade delivered her ornament: a glittery rendition of gender terrorist Christeene Vale.

 

Legendary ladies Lauren Ezersky and Nile Cmylo.

 

My parties always have that small apartment/big party Breakfast at Tiffany's vibe and this year, Alenia completed it by coming as Holly Golightly.

 

A former colleague at MoMA Design Store, Christy Nyiri and Studio 54 legend Snoogy Brown. No party is complete without Snoogy!

 

International woman of mystery Isabel H. and Stevin Azo.

 

Stevin Azo's ornament: The First Lady of the Night, Melania! I did not vote for Donald Trump (I'm a Bernie Sanders supporter), however I do not approve of the slut-shaming that has proliferated since Melania's nude photos were released. I am pleased to have her among my ornaments.

 

Ben Shields and his friend, the writer and contrarian feminist Janet Stern Capron.

Janet's ornament: Betty Boop riding side saddle while sporting a cock ring scarf.

 

Investigative journalist Aaron Rasmussen and Katie Degentesh (as a lucha libre).

 

Christy, Dan, writer Johanna Lenander (alas, her promised Andrea Dworkin ornament never materialized), and one of my colleagues from MoMA Design Store, Cathy Citarella.

 

Cathy's ornament was a beautiful tribute to Katherine Hepburn...

…with Kate’s quote. (Because there’s nothing more tedious and annoying than a self-proclaimed “rules person.”)

 

Writer Corey Sabourin with Cuban Revolution documenter and author of One Day in December Nancy Stout.

 

Nancy's ornament was the subject of her biography One Day in December: Celia Sanchez, the most prominent woman in the Cuban Revolution.

 

MoMA collection artist Martirene Alcantara and Corey.

 

Martirene brought two beautiful gold show ornaments (the Liza tree above it is Carly Sommerstein's ornament from last year)....

Corey Sabourin's ornament looks ahead to the impending election.

 

Fashion writer and curator Alexis Romano and Martirene Alcantara.

 

Alexis' ornament was a sassy homage to Simone de Beauvoir!

 

Janet Stern Capron and me surveying Janet’s ornaments.

 

Product designer and Lucky Wang store owner Emily Wang discussed her love for Rick Owens with Lauren Ezersky.

 

Dan and Ben

 

Josh Casey of MoMA Design Store, Aaron, Martirene and Josh's friend Ben.

 

Dana and Alenia

 

Me feeling the effects of the bubbly with writer Janet Rosen.

 

Many of my guests dispensed with the saccharine tradition of twee ornaments and instead favored violent themes:

Janet's ornament celebrated Old Testament badass Judith and her beheading of Holofernes.

Artist Scott Neary's re-telling of the Salome tale with a beheaded Donald.

 

A felt tribute to Lorena Bobbitt as Katie Degentesh's serene angel looks on.

 

Harriet Tubman on a roll of $20 bills. There has been a movement in favor of replacing Andrew Jackson with Tubman on the bill and I say it's high time for that!

 

Thanks for reading, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, good fortune in 2019..

xxx

Glenn Belverio

 

Rome & AltaRoma, Summer 2018

Above: Fornasetti at the Palazzo Altemps

 

Dear paisanos and Italophiles,

I was back in Rome at the end of June to visit friends, cover the summer edition of AltaRoma with Diane Pernet, check out the Fornasetti exhibition and relax at one of my favorite hotels in Europe, the Locarno. Here are the links to all my recent stories on A Shaded View on Fashion:

Sylvio Giardina's Haute Couture triumph

What to Wear to the Apocalypse: A.I. Re-action exhibition

Miahatami celebrates the power of Persian Women

We visited the workshops where Gucci's baby dragons were created

Touring the legendary backlots of Cinecittà Studios

A visit to the Accademia Costume e Moda

Fornasetti exhibition at the Palazzo Altemps

 

Susan Sabet of Pashion magazine, Oscar-winning costume designer Milena Canonero and yours truly at Sala Fellini.

 

 Who Is On Next? Italian Vogue competition winner MRZ.

 

Lupo Lanzara, Diane Pernet, Paulo Mariotti of Brazilian Vogue, Rebecca Voight and Alessio de Navasques at the Accademia Costume e Moda.

 

Lebanese trans woman couture designer Robert Abi Nader showed ghostly glamour at the 17th-century Biblioteca Casanatense.

 

My friend the actor and screenwriter Rinaldo Rocco invited me to a delightful dinner on his roof terrace in Monti.

 

Cinecittà Studios - the set of HBO's Rome.

 

 

Baci, baci,

Glenn Belverio

 

 

Patti Smith Surprise Performance at The Museum of Modern Art, December 21, 2017. Video & words by Glenn Belverio

 

Dear Barefoot Dancers,

Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye did a free Winter Solstice show at my place of work, MoMA, and it was something akin to a religious experience. She sang the last song that John Lennon wrote, for Yoko, and electrified us with her boundless optimism. ("2017 has been a year of great, unexpected strife...but it's also another year of being alive, and being a alive is the greatest thing we have, it's the greatest gift.")

She read poems she wrote for Robert Mappethorpe and Sam Shepard and sang a gorgeous rendition of "O Holy Night." Michael Stipe was there and joined her on stage (which I missed because I had a meeting to run to) but I videotaped most of it, four videos below, enjoy this lovely performance. (You'll need to turn on the sound in the lower right-hand corner of each video.)

Love,

Glenn Belverio

 

 

 

 

My Club 57 vs. Studio 54 Tree-Trimming Party. Photos & words by Glenn Belverio

Adam & Alenia

Nancy Stout, Sean Carrillo, Bibbe Hansen & Josh

Francesco, Rebecca, Chay & Rober

Patrick McDonald & Lauren Ezersky

Catherine Talese & Rebecca Goyette

Bruce Benderson. Adam, Ben Shields & Scott Neary

 

Dear club hoppers, hair hoppers & hopped-up homos,

This year marked the 10th anniversary of my annual Christmas tree-trimming party and it was a night for the ages. Each year I choose an ornament theme (Alfred Hitchcock, 1970s New York, Fellini vs. Pasolini, Oscar Niemeyer's 100th birthday) and draw up a guest list based on the strategy developed in My Way of Life by Joan Crawford (except that barefooted hippies are allowed to attend. You just don't find many of those in the winter).

This year, based on a wonderful exhibition at  my place of work, MoMA, (Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978–1983) I chose the theme Club 57 and pitted it against its antithesis, Studio 54. The dress code:

Klaus Nomi otherworldliness, Bianca Jagger floor-length furs and Steve Rubell Norma Kamali sleeping bag coats, John Sex towering pompadours and nubile sensuality, amyl-nitrate-soaked hanky code hankies, Nomi-Bowie Tristan Tzara Dada dandyism, man-in-the-moon coke spoons, B-52s beehives and Kenny Scharf fluorescent body paint, Truman Capote catatonic stupors, Ann Magnuson magnetism, Liza-like ‘lude behavior, Wendy Wild Joey Heatherock runway realness, Halston ultrasuede jumpsuits and Victor Hugo jockstraps, James Chance skinny ties and No Wave attitude, Grace Jones Azzedine Alaïa femme fatale couture, Fleshtones paisley shirts and love beads, and partial or total nudity.

And now, onto the party....

Suzanne Batmanghelichi and Patrick McDonald

Writer Bruce Benderson tackled the ornament theme gamely by morphing John Sex with Liza Minnelli.

Susan, the photographer behind the project "I Am a Rent-Stabilized Tenant," made an ornament with the now-iconic photo of Keith Haring performing his Dada-esque TV piece at Club 57. You can see the video of this at MoMA's exhibition.

Designer Sylvia Heisel and her husband artist Scott Taylor (who was a bartender at Studio 54 in the late '70s) made this 3D-printed ornament representing Club 57's logo. The Liza Xmas tree is by Carly Sommerstein. I remember those Peretti cuffs from my dog days at Tiffany's!

The Club 57 ornament glows in the dark!

Sylvia and Scott also made a 3D-printed Studio 54 logo ornament.

Designer Nile Cmylo, Glennda Orgasm video archivist and art collector Stevin Azo, and Warhol Superstar Bibbe Hansen. Stevin is dressed as Bianca Jagger's white horse.

Nile Cmylo attempted to exorcise her Trump-news obsession by creating this sequined DT doll. Why such a glamorous costume for the fascist troll? It's a nod to the days Trump spent hanging out at Studio 54 with his arch-McCarthyist buddy, Roy Cohn!

Bibbe Hansen made this hand-sewn homage to Keith Haring's Exploding Head artwork.

 Like Batman's The Riddler, Stevin Azo riddled us this: What is the difference between Club 57 and Studio 54? Don't ask me about the chunky debris at the bottom....I am sure it is fake! And not the only "I wonder if these drugs are real" ornament on my tree....

Front and back view of the ornament brought by Catherine Talese: an early '80s party invite for the club Area. Catherine has an extensive and very impressive archive of club invites from the '80s. This one is famous—and rather notorious. Honored to have it on my tree!

Regarding that aforementioned white horse, Shawne Riley sent me her handmade wooden ornament all the way from sunny New Mexico: Bianca Jagger riding into Studio 54 on a white horse on her birthday.

Shawne sent this photo along for reference.

Hot stuff! Editor Carly Sommerstein, Studio 54 legend Snoogy Brown and writer Nancy Stout.

Nancy Stout's No Wave Disco meteorite.

Oh, I love this one! What seems like a random Dadaist gesture from Ben Shields is actually steeped in history: Before Studio 54 was the most famous disco in the world, it was CBS Studio 52, where The Jack Benny Show was filmed in the 1950s and 1960s. I always loved the conundrum of Benny being a faggy skirt chaser. Skirt chaser? Are we still allowed to say that?! TRIGGER WARNING.

The angel on top of the tree this year is performance artist Rebecca Goyette's homage to Club 57 manager, DJ and all-around ring leader, Ann Magnuson, here in Bongwater "Power of Pussy" mermaid mode.

The flip side has the lyrics to "The Power of Pussy."

Following in the footsteps of Mark Morgan Perez (who couldn't make it this year), my friend Dana turned one of her empty prescription bottles into a festive ornament.

Janet Rosen's tribute to Club 57's Bill Landis. Landis screened exploitation films for his Sleazoid Express film series at the club.

The flip side.

Girls’ Night Out by artist Scott Neary. I believe this was the night Elizabeth was photographed in her limo for the cover of Hollywood Babylon 2!

Fashion legend Lauren Ezersky came over early to help me with my equally legendary radis farcis au chèvre.

I love it when people make new friends at my parties! Snoogy and Rebecca from MoMA.

We were all WOWed by fashion curator Alexis Romano's trompe-l'œil dress!

My parties are a dictatorship at the door....and a democracy on the dance floor! Sometime past midnight we all did the Frug, the Watusi and the Mashed Potato to the B-52s "Quiche Lorraine" and continued on to Richard Hell and the Voidoids, the Ramones, The Jam and, of course, Blondie. It's true that my bedroom sees a lot of action but usually not this kind of action!

 

Kyle from the National Arts Club brought an Andy teddy bear from the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh!

Klaus Nomi in my kitchen. I wore a Klaus Nomi t-shirt to the party and well, there are no photos of me from the party. Someone who shall remain nameless had to delete all the photos of me from their prehistoric phone before they boarded a Texas-bound WWII-era propeller plane. Oh mary, don't ask! And the rest of my friends were having way too much fun to stand around and take photos. They get drunk, converse, eat and dance—just like our flapper fore-mothers did! Even Snoogy refrained from taking selfies....

An image of John Sex from my invite.

My tree this morning: still holding up.

Happy holidaze, dolls.

xxx

Glenn Belverio

Club 57 Exhibition Opening Bash at MoMA. Photos by Glenn Belverio

A year ago, Ann Magnuson performed at MoMA with a show that combined live music (Bongwater, Bowie and songs from her latest album Dream Girl) with her films and videos —including a montage of dream sequences from some of her favorite films—oh, and she sang "The Porpoise Song" from The Monkees film Head!

She also announced that in just a little over a year—on Halloween, in fact—MoMA would open an exhibition dedicated to Club 57 (where she was a manager, party host, DJ and performer), and I was over the moon....but it seemed like such a looooooong time away! After much anticipation, the night finally, FINALLY arrived—and what a night it was!

Truth be told, I was too young to have attended Club 57, which ran from 1978–1983, but I was a regular at many clubs that were influenced by 57, from 1985 onward: The Pyramid Club, King Tut's Wah-Wah Hut, Danceteria, The World, Siberia, Palladium, Boy Bar, Tunnel, Mars and Jackie 60.

The exhibition catalogue for Club 57: Film, Performance and Art in the East Village, 1978–1983 describes the scene thusly: 'New York’s East Village was alive with artistic activity in the 1970s and ’80s, fueled by low rents, resistance to the Reagan presidency, and the desire to experiment with new modes of art, performance, fashion, music, and exhibition. Club 57, located in the basement of a Polish church at 57 St. Marks Place, began as a no-budget venue for music and film exhibitions and quickly became a center of the neighborhood’s constellation of countercultural venues, with artists such as Keith Haring, Ann Magnuson, Klaus Nomi, Tseng Kwong Chi, John Sex, Fab 5 Freddy, John “Lypsinka” Eppperson, and Lisa Baumgardner.'

 

Club 57 ringleader, the amazing Ann Magnuson and Animal X with Klaus Nomi stage costume by Natasha.

 John Waters

 Theodora Richards, daughter of Keith Richards and Patty Hansen

 Johnny Dynell

 Joey Arias

 John Kelly

 Club 57 founder Stanley Zbigniew Strychacki (center)

 John "Lypsinka" Epperson and friend. John is a guest curator of the exhibition's terrific film series Your Are Now One of Us: Film at Club 57 (organized by Ron Magliozzi, Curator, and Sophie Cavoulacos, Assistant Curator, Department of Film). John introduced the first night of the series when Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was screened. It was a hoot seeing one of my favorite films of all time on a big screen again and such a gas to hear how the audience responded to certain moments that I've watched hundreds of times—they laughed at things that I've always regarded with earnest seriousness!

Video featuring Joey Arias

Painting by Kenny Scharf

Peter Zaremba of The Fleshtones

Kenny Scharf's Cosmic Closet

Kenny Scharf

Video featuring Joey Arias

Detail of “Klaus Nomi” by Stefano Castronovo 1983, unfinished at the time of Nomi’s death.

Kenny Scharf

Kenny Scharf

Ana Roth, Alan Rosenberg and Robert Hawkins

John Waters and former Mudd Club owner Steve Mass

 David Ilku and Johnny Dynell

Jef Bretschneider's Shifting Borders, 1978 (Christmas lights, chicken wire, plaster gauze, drywall, gesso) "hung over the bar at Club 57 in the fall of 1980 and was created as commentary on the national debate over the dangers of nuclear power. With Ronald Reagan's election to the presidency that year, the work took on new meaning, serving as a reflection of the country's increasingly divided electorate."

 

Frank Holliday's The Lingerie Family, 1983 features a creepy, watchful moving video eye!

 

Always missing John Sex. I saw him perform at Wigstock and the Pyramid Club a few times before he passed away from AIDS in 1990.
 

 Kenny Scharf

 Self portrait by Stephen Tashjian aka TABBOO!

 Keith Haring

 I saw the Alien Comic perform many times at Dixon Place and PS122.

Club 57: Film, Performance and Art in the East Village, 1978–1983 is on view at MoMA through April 1, 2018.

 

Later,
Glenn Belverio

 

 

My Dinner with Warhol Superstar Viva Hoffmann & “Lonesome Cowboys” VIP Screening at The Roxy Hotel in New York. By Glenn Belverio

Actress Gaby Hoffmann with her mom Viva.

Writers Valerie McPhail and Ben Shields, and designer Nile Cmylo

Chelsea Girls: Viva & Nile

 

Illyse Singer, cinema manager of The Roxy Theater, Viva & Geralyn Huxley of the Andy Warhol Museum

Illyse Singer, cinema manager of The Roxy Theater, Viva & Geralyn Huxley of the Andy Warhol Museum

A few nights ago, my longtime pal Kelly Cutrone invited me and a select few to have dinner with Andy Warhol Superstar Viva Hoffmann at The Roxy Hotel in Tribeca. Giddy with anticipation and maybe a little bit intimidated, I mentally jotted down notes for dinner topics. Should I ask Viva if she was still suppressing the long-unseen Blue Movie, the 1969 Warhol flick that is considered the first adult erotic film depicting explicit sex to receive wide U.S. theatrical release? (I think I just answered my own question there.) Would she want to talk about my favorite film she stars in, Nude Restaurant (her first Warhol movie) or would she find that boring? (Answer: Yes. It seems she finds all those films boring.)

 

 

I was seated next to Viva at dinner, who was sitting next to her three-year-old granddaughter Rosemary Dapkins. Across from Viva we were blessed with the presence of Anthony Haden-Guest and also Debra Scherer, who has worked at both French and Italian Vogue, and as an assistant to Polly Mellen. She now runs a website called The Culture Crush.

I chatted with Viva as we waited for one of her daughters, the actress Gaby Hoffmann, to arrive. I mentioned how earlier that day I was talking to my friend Camille Paglia, a big fan of Viva’s work, about how Camille had the magnificent New York Times Magazine cover from November 1968 featuring Viva, Andy Warhol and Ultra Violet (“The Return of Andy Warhol”) pinned to her wall through four years of grad school at Yale, starting in 1968 (and also when she taught at Bennington). Viva was unmoved. (“That’s sad,” she said bluntly.)

 

The cover in question. Camille Paglia and I both love the grittiness and natural light. "That distressed brick wall was really major for a cover photo on the NYT Sunday magazine--it conveyed a downtown sensibility making its mark at last!" Camille told me.

I switched topics as we ordered (pasta and lobster for me, tomato soup and grilled cheese for Viva) and we talked about how she now lives in Palm Springs, not far from another former Warhol actor, Udo Kier. “We made a date for me to swim in his salt-water pool,” she told me. “But when the day came, I forgot.” I mentioned the Warhol films that were to be screened that night, Tarzan and Jane Regained and Blowjob, and she remarked, “I’ve never seen those films.”

“Not even Blowjob?!” I asked incredulously.

“No. Is that the one with John Giorno?”

“That was Sleep,” I corrected her, as I realized maybe those two films are not so different from each other after all. As I was about to ask her how she would talk about two films she’d never seen during the Q&A, her daughter Gaby swept into the room. Tall and with a dramatic mane of brown hair, Gaby galvanized our two tables as she turned heads and energetically introduced herself to everyone, before Viva steered her into a seat next to Anthony Haden-Guest.

“Gaby, Anthony knew your father,” Viva explained. “You need to talk to him.” Gaby’s father, the actor Anthony Herrera, passed away in 2011 and, judging from the anecdotes that ensued, was not well-loved by either Viva or Gaby. Anthony Haden-Guest had some stories about the time he traveled with Herrera but I was drawn into some martini-fueled fashion-and-art chatter with Debra Scherer as the evening began to happily blur.

 

I'll have what she's having. Viva in Warhol's "Nude Restaurant."

Viva is 79-years-old and draped in a veneer of gentle grandmotherliness that belies the saucy, acerbic personality that still lurks just below her reading spectacles and shawl—the persona we know and love from Warhol’s films and as the voice of her 1970 roman-a-clef Superstar. (In it, Warhol is referred to simply as A, with pimples and in a black leather jacket “surrounded by fags,” the Factory is “the Plant,” Edie Sedgwick is “Evie” and getting shot up by a doctor in her dressing room during a film shoot, and Chelsea Girls is “Gramercy Girls.”)

 

Halfway through the dinner, I realized that I had forgotten to bring my copy of Superstar to dinner (signed, as it turns out, to Stanley Bard, former owner of the Chelsea Hotel.) "I'm mad at myself for forgetting the book," I told Viva. "And now I'm mad at you," she frowned. I found the book in a used bookstore near Washington Square Park about 10 or 15 years ago and the inscription from Viva reads: "Dearest Stanley the Magician, Your magic inspiration led me to the madness of actually working on a typewriter and thus — voila! Presto! Angels! Love & Kisses you handsome devil. Viva"

 

Me and Viva at dinner

The dinner was beginning to feel like one of those Dick Cavett Show group interviews that you hope will go on forever, until I was alerted to the time by a text from my friend Nile Cmylo, a fashion designer who lives in the Chelsea Hotel and was there when Viva was a resident until around the late '90s. (“Are you coming to this screening?” Nile texted. She and some other friends were in the Roxy Hotel’s theater since before 7pm waiting for the movie to start. “I’m having dinner with Viva,” I text-bragged back.) It was then that the dinner guests realized we needed to move from the dining room to the theater. The film that was actually screened, Lonesome Cowboys starring Viva, began about an hour late.

 

It certainly was a treat to see Lonesome Cowboys on a big screen again after so many years. The Roxy projected it in 16mm and the colors looked rich, with brooding darkness alternating with bright desert sunlight. Beautiful male bodies on display along with a hilarious performance by Viva, looking especially gorgeous here, terrific costumes and an obvious influence on Brokeback Mountain. My favorite scene involves Joe Dallesandro and Taylor Meade dancing to "Magical Mystery Tour" by The Beatles.

 

 

 

Love,

Glenn Belverio

Berlin Bombshells: Vaginal Davis & Susanne Sachsse in NYC for the Opening for The Magic Flute. Photos & words by Glenn Belverio

From Berlin to Eternity: Two phantasmagoric nights with Vag and Susanne and a cast of thousands, including Lia Gangitano, Jonathan Berger, Jamie of Xiu Xiu, Wenzel Bilger, Bibbe Hansen, Izhar Pantkin and jewelry designer Jelena Behrend, who presented Vag, Susanne and Izhar with special Cheap Collective designs.

 

Mein Herr Dolls:

I have been remiss in my reporting duties here, but it's been a busy, busy spring with too much work to do. A few weeks ago my close friends and Berlin-based artists Vaginal Davis and Susanne Sachsse were in town for the opening of the film version of their notorious performance piece "The Magic Flute" which was staged at 80WSE Gallery on Washington Square Park.

A very Dada-esque press conference for the film was held at the Goethe-Institut, moderated by Lia Gangitano of Participant Gallery and Cleofus Guenevere, who was a member of Vag's legendary LA punk band, Black Fag. If you missed this press conference, all I can say is you missed an historic bit of performance art. Afterwards—fortified by many glasses of splendid German white wine—we floated over to the gallery for the opening party of "The Magic Flute" film.

And the magic didn't stop there—the following night, Lia organized a party for Vag and Susanne in the enchanting and spacious garden home of artist Izhar Patkin. It was a spectacular setting featuring a transcendent Middle Eastern feast and a cast of characters that represented the luscious, lunatic fringe of the downtown performance art scene.

 Vag and Susanne read their maniacal manifestos.

 The very essence of chic: Lia Gangitano.

 Mutt and Jeff: Cleofus Guenevere and me.

 Jamie of the band Xiu Xiu (right) and friend. Xiu Xiu composed music for "The Magic Flute" and I had the pleasure of seeing them perform their interpretation of songs from "Twin Peaks" at the Crematorium in Berlin two months ago.

 Arriving at Izhar Patkin's magic garden..

 Susanne, Vag and Russian dissident and international artist Slava Mogutin.

Lia with Marti Beaut. You might remember Marti as Marti Domination from the Jackie 60 days!

 Susanne with her The Misandrists' co-star Kembra Pfahler. (It's a film by Bruce LaBruce, coming soon...)

 Transgender supernova Mx. Justin Vivian Bond.

 Susanne with her impossibly gorgeous son, Richard Gabriel.

 Staircase wit: Lia gave a lovely speech about the artists before the presenting of the jewelry.

Love,

Glenn Belverio

2015: My year in jet-setting photos. By Glenn Belverio

Dear frequent-flier free spirits,

When I wasn't chained to a desk in an office, I managed to have a fascinating year of flitting from Bermuda to Palm Springs, Rome to Palermo. Here is my year in pictures.

 New Year's Day in Bermuda: a harbinger of hope near Horseshoe Bay. I flew down to the pristine British Overseas Territory to visit my cousin Kathy and her family.

Ivory tower view: Kathy's husband, David, took this photo of me atop Bermuda's famed Gibbs Hill Lighthouse.

A spelunking we will go: deep down in Crystal Cave.

 As Hyacinth Bucket might say, yelling to everyone within earshot of her white slimline telephone: "It's my cousin Kathy, the one with a swimming pool, sauna and room for a pony!"

Kathy has a lovely house with lovely hospitality in Hamilton, located conveniently near the Pink Princess Fairmont Hotel, home of the formidable hand-shaken bartender piña colada. It packs a wallop!

 At the end of January, I escaped the wet gloom of NYC and took a jaunt to the divine desert community of Palm Springs. I never got used to the 3-hour time change and fell asleep early every night (the bed at the Alcazar Hotel was like sleeping on a cloud)—so, I might have missed out on a few swinging nights at the Purple Room (next time) but I awoke every day at 5am and walked down to the corner of North Palm Canyon Drive and Alejo Road and watched the sun rise. The dawn's early light kissing the sky and the mountains is one of the greatest shows on earth!

The main reason I went to Palm Springs was to visit Patrick McDonald, North America's most important dandy institution. Patrick relocated to Palm Springs from NYC, transmogrified into the Desert Dandy and helped run the charming shop No. 6 Palm Springs with his twin brother Michael. Now Patrick is back in NYC because he missed the limelight—and the soup at Veselka!

 During my stay I took a tour with Palm Springs Modern and visited some of the most fantastic examples of mid-century modern architecture in the world! The clean lines of modernism are the perfect complement to the zen minimalism of the desert landscapes. My idea of heaven.

 The Edris House by E. Stewart Williams, 1953

 Side view of the iconic and meticulously restored Kaufmann house (yes, the one that appears in the famous "Poolside Gossip" photo). Designed by Richard Neutra, it is widely considered to be one of the finest works of residential architecture in North America (along with Frank Lloyd Wright's "Falling Water," which was commissioned by the same family.)

 Another view of the Kaufmann house designed by Richard Neutra.

A very rare Studebaker Avanti, manufactured in Palm Springs in 1963.

 I had a lovely outdoor brunch with Michael McDonald and Carlos King at the Escena Lounge & Grill where we had a visitor: a very chic roadrunner!

 My close pal, the Hollywood-based lesbian rock star Carole Pope, took a private stage coach down to the Springs to join me for some desert sun and tiki drinks at Bootlegger Tiki.

Bootlegger Tiki is located on the site of Don the Beachcomber's PS outpost, which opened in 1953. Don the Beachcomber arguably invented tiki pop in the U.S. in the '30s and here he served his trademark Zombies and Cantonese food dressed up as exotic Polynesian cuisine (just add pineapples!). Now, only a small area of the space is dedicated to the old tiki mecca, and Bootlegger Tiki has updated the aesthetic by serving more refined versions of tiki cocktail classics.

  Here I am in what quickly became my daily cocktail-hour booth enjoying what I think is the most delicious cocktail on the menu: the Pod Thai. It's made with Selvarey rum, house-made cardamom lemongrass syrup, coconut cream, lime juice and Thai basil. I need more of this in my life!

 Carole and I stayed at the idyllic Alcazar Palm Springs, located in the chilled-out Uptown Design District. The Alcazar, opened in 2011, is a classic Spanish Colonial building transformed into a modern boutique hotel that oozes charm and relaxation. In the 1930s, the property was a secret hideaway for celebrities who went there to dry out (which was the last thing I was there for!) and in 1950 it opened as a hotel called the Pepper Tree Inn.

 In July, Diane Pernet and I were invited to my favorite city, Rome, to cover the bi-annual fashion event Alta Roma for A Shaded View on Fashion.

 The Inn Crowd: me, Ari Seth Cohen of Advanced Style and fashion writer Rebecca Voight at the Rome Times Hotel before the Azzedine Alaïa cocktail at the Galleria Borghese.

 Skin is always in: python halter top by Azzedine Alaïa.

 The man of the hour: Azzedine Alaïa during the morning press preview at the Galleria Borghese.

 Designer Alessandra Carta, moi and Pashion magazine editor Susan Sabat at the Alaïa cocktail. (No, that is not Vaseline on the lens—it's what happens when you hand a real camera to someone who is used to taking photos only with an iPhone. Oh, the times we live in....what a world, what a world...)

 Trigger warning, dolls! The Galleria's most famous sculpture: The Rape of Proserpina.

 The Galleria's gorgeous ceiling.

 A diaphanous delight at the Rani Zakehm show at Alta Roma.

 Enrico Palazzo, Diane Pernet and I arriving for the Zoolander 2 wrap party at the Villa Brasini.

 Diane, who has a cameo in Zoolander 2, took a moment to chat with the film's star Ben Stiller.

 Susan Sabet during the open house at the Accademia di Costume e di Moda.

 It was boiling hot this past July in Rome, so Diane and I sought air-conditioned refuge in a cash machine.

 During my leisure time in Rome after Alta Roma, I visited the show of Uruguayan sculptor Pablo Atchugarry at the Mercati di Traiano.

Say it loud and wear it proud: I love-a the spaghetti! From the "Tales About Fashion & Food" exhibit at the Mercati di Traiano.

Hangin' and a' jiving—good times! Me and Moz at the Rome Times Hotel.
 

Tiki madness in the Hotel Locarno garden with designers Alessandra Carta and Paola Balzano.

 The Holy Trinity: Alta Roma's Conseulo Aranyi, luscious Italian olives and the Locarno's Earl Drunk.

In September, I was back in Italy—Palermo, Sicily to be precise—for my yearly end-of-the-summer holiday. I was over the moon for the Arab-Norman architecture.

 Just about every day I had an aracina, bigger than my head, for breakfast at Arancini Bomba. This one was filled with spinach and mozzarella but my favorite was the sausage ragú version. Divoonly delicious and gloriously greasy.

You see the most curious things wandering around the rambling back streets of Palermo. I loved this '70s-style spaghetti ad wheatpasted to a crumbling shack.

I met Sicily's most important art gallerist, Francesco Panteleone, and he took me on a tour of his family's mesmerizing, multi-level religious articles shop.

I paid homage to one of Italy's founding fathers, Giuseppe Garibaldi, in the Giardino Garibaldi, famous for its mammoth banyan tree and the arrow-motif fence.

 The so-called Fountain of Shame, named thusly by a group of frustrated nuns who had had to gaze at its nudity from their cloister window.

 I visited the fascinating Museo Internazionale delle Marionette (puppet museum) and wandered around alone in its spooky rooms, absorbing the history of Sicilian puppets that began sometime in the early 19th century.

This looks like a Christmas present from Krampus for hopelessly naughty adults.

 I took a day trip to the town of Monreale, which seems to have more consideration for the impossibly blue Mediterranean than Palermo does.

 The reason one goes to Monreale is to visit the jaw-dropping 12th-century cathedral, famous for its gilded mosaics that depict just about every story in the Bible.

 Meanwhile, back in Palermo...

 The famed Quattro Canti.

 The most transcendent dish I ate in Palermo was the bucatini con sarde at Casa del Brodo: a perfect composition of wild fennel, sardines, currants, pistachios, fennel seeds, pine nuts, pepper flakes, saffron and breadcrumbs. This is what life is all about.

 Palermo's massive cathedral.

 One of the games you play in this city is trying to locate all of the Genius of Palermo statues. This one was tucked away in a tiny garbage-piled alleyway. Pre-Roman in origin, this mysterious icon is the laic patron of Palermo. One interpretation is that, because Palermo has an ancient history of colonization and conquerors, the snake represents the foreign presence which eats from Palermo while imbuing it the knowledge and cultural contributions.

During one of my epic flânerie, I stumbled upon this Genius in the Piazza della Rivoluzione.

 I rented this splendid apartment in Butera28, which is run by Nicoletta Polo, the Duchess of Palma, in the Palazzo Lanza Tomasi (the last home of the author of The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa).

 View from the Duchess's garden.

Nicoletta Polo Lanza Tomasi, the Duchess of Palma, by the bay laurel tree in her garden at the start of "Cooking with the Duchess," a cooking class that I took.

Nicoletta took us to one of the city's oldest markets, Il Capo, to buy ingredients for the lunch we prepared. Here's where we got the swordfish for our involtini.

 At Capo Market.

 Me in the Duchess's kitchen zesting some lemon for the involtini (swordfish rolls) stuffing.

The table is set for lunch in the grand dining room.

 The white gloves were out for the silver-service lunch. We started with the ruvidelli con pesto alla Trapanese.

After lunch, we adjourned to the ballroom where Nicoletta recounted the compelling history of the palazzo, Palermo during WWII and The Leopard.

Later that evening, the Duchess and I attended an opening at Francesco Panteleone's gallery in the Quattro Canti. Here she is with Francesco exchanging stories about their lives and businesses in increasingly popular Palermo. (The New York Times did a story about the city shortly after my piece appeared on A Shaded View on Fashion.)

 

 During the opening, I met Stefania Galegati Shines, who is wearing a clever Clash-goes-classical t-shirt designed by Palermo Studios. Stefania gifted me this fab t-shirt along with an "Out in Palermo" version. Among the city's top movers and shakers, Stefania and her husband Darrell recently opened the club Caffè Internazionale.

 Palermo is famous for its street eats and this grilled pork and peppers sandwich, consumed with a Negroni outside my favorite dive bar in Vucciria, was the food of the gods.

 Dinner at Bisso with Nicole and Rafaella.

In November I was back in Bermuda to spend Thanksgiving with my cousin Kathy and her family.

Chic Vespa, check. Chic Burberry trench, check. An incredible bargain on luxury fashion, check. A helmet for protection on the battlefields of Longchamp and Chanel? Priceless. Kathy returns from Black Friday shopping in downtown Hamilton.

 Move over palm trees, the Christmas tree has arrived in Bermuda!

Kathy and I went out for industrial-strength piña coladas at the Fairmont Hotel. We checked out this creepy-cute bunny by Tom Sachs.

 Dinah Shore, eat your heart out. A relaxing game of luxe miniature golf on the sea was a perfect way for me to unwind after a hectic year in aggressive New York.

Thank you for taking this trip with me.

Love,

Glenn Belverio