La Vie En Rose

Border Blooms in Wales

The trellis next to the front door.

Snapped these sights on our trip to Wales a couple weeks ago, all just steps from the cottage where Andy's mum and step-pop have resided for the last two decades. It's an absolutely idyllic spot on this Earth, and we feel lucky to wake up there during different seasons throughout the year.

View from the front door (and the upstairs bedrooms).

The road in front of the cottage property, and a few of the locals who have the run of the hills in these parts.

Monet Mazur Serves Up the Platters at Nobu

Monet Mazur

This is what the mother of a toddler looks like. Lovely Monet Mazur came out to spin the likes of Ciara, Mandy Moore, Molly Sims, Rachel Bilson and many other starlet pals of Elle into a frenzy a few weeks back at Nobu in WeHo. Elle fashion director Joe Zee was there, too; it's been a kick seeing so much of my former colleague at Fairchild Pub, both onscreen and here in L.A. where he seems to be more often than not shooting all those tangy spreads for the magazine.
The evening was part promo for trendy chain Express, part awareness campaign for R.A.D.D. (Recording Artists, Actors and Athletes Against Drunk Driving), a nonprofit promoting road safety in the entertainment industry. Have to believe they did, indeed, turn out that night with drivers since there was such a parade of oversized gas guzzlers clogging up the valet. That would allow them to be able to text while rolling, too, which is good since that was the the angle that night: Don't text and drive. Amen.

We'd ventured out that night as part of the host committee in the dining room that counted Jen Gross, Bryan Rabin, Mike Messex and our other halves (Bryan brought the foxy T.C. Conroy along). There were some flavorful moments. But Andy and I thought the dishes were a bit more enjoyable at the Nobu in NY's SoHo...and even then not as well executed or imaginative as the sushi served up at our the relatively less known haunts we visit weekly.

Elle Supertar Joe Zee and pal.

Moonlight Sonata: Monet Mazur

Regarding a Book By Its Cover: Ruben Toledo's Penguins

Sunday night fever! Just ordered my Penguin Classics copies of The Scarlett Letter, Wuthering Heights,and Pride and Prejudice. Not because I didn't already pore over them enough in grade school. These are strictly for appearance's sake. The trio underwent a makeover in the brilliant hands of our pal Ruben Toledo, and were finally released last week. Admittedly, my first go at these books in junior high weren't as thrilling as the dirty rock bios I would read under the covers with a flashlight. Who knows? With looks like these, maybe it's time to give these another chance.

Off the Wall: Norwood Young + Michael Jackson

Enough said.

Crowned the "King of Hancock Park" by the alt-crowd because of his utterly mad digs--specifically the 17 statues of Michelangelo's David that line the driveway of his whitewashed house--the source of fascination, celebration, derision and litigation (by neighbors) known as Norwood Young is feting his birthday tonight with an all-out tribute to the "King of Pop," his fellow Virgo, Michael Jackson.
Yes, on the eve when the coroner confirmed what's long been suspected, that the superstar was murdered from a toxic cocktail of meds, the residents of Hancock Park and all lucky enough to head out into Hollywood on Third Street will be hit with the kind mind-bending, rubber-necking, only-in-L.A. moment of pure unadulterated, fabulous insanity that comes from a toxic binge of too many gin cocktails.

Rollover Michaelangelo: David feels the thrill.

I was driving home from the Riser Goodwyn trunk show at Patricia Arquette's house down the road when I hit the brakes, swerved right and parked in front of Youngwood Court as its owner christened it (in white wrought iron, no less). Workers were rapidly dressing the lawn and the David statues in red and black MJ "Thriller"-style jackets for tonight, and Norwood, who my ex Simon Jones had made many an extravagant custom suit for during his Richard Tyler days, was surveying it all with satisfaction.
"I love Michael and our birthdays are just a day apart," he told me, as a hulking worker leaned a fancy letter "N" against a 7-foot-tall sparkling glove.
In fact, I learned later his "people" sent a release to The L.A. Times, which posted this graph from it:

"Besides having a birthday that's just one day apart, interestingly, both Young and Jackson share other similarities: Both men are considered eccentric.... Both men suffered abuse as children. Both men had their share of plastic surgery. And most importantly, both men found refuge in their music." (Young made his money as a singer.)

"He was the King of Pop, and I'm the king here," he continued to tell me. "So it seemed like a fitting way to celebrate our birthdays." Not sure how his Orthodox Jewish neighbors will take it all tonight, but Mr. Norwood, with chutzpah like this, You rock my world.

A throne fit for a king, or two.

T-Time with Arianne Phillips

Arianne Philips by Jean-Baptiste Mondino

For those of you who missed the recent 5th anniversary issue of T Magazine (and hopefully you did not), do not fail to check out Daphne Merkin's spot-on feature on the amazing and influential Arianne Phillips.
A fabulously congenial spirit without affectation, Arianne's role, however, is captured perfectly in this photograph by Jean-Baptiste Mondino: She is the masked hero of fashion, of style, and like any true artist, preferring her work to express her insights...or at least leaving it the likes of deft writers such as Ms. Merkin.

American Craft Honors Maria White

Hand-carved pots by Maria White

Bravo to Maria White who received the Award of Excellence from the American Craft Council at its recent show in San Francisco for her elegant ceramics.

The ACC--in case you don't know, and you should if you have any interest in design--is a nonprofit educational organization promoting awareness and appreciation of contemporary American crafts. It does so through a wonderful array of programming around the country, as well as a relevant magazine that definitely deserves your subscription.

Maria studied sculpture in Italy and at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine, and her pots have received top placement from the American Ceramic Society

Maria White

and other craft guilds.

Though she lives in Hollywood, she hasn't lost her honeyed South Carolina twang, making her and her work all the more irresistible.
We've been thrilled to champion Maria's pots and pendants at A+R, and her annual holiday trunk shows are always a great time because she surprises us and her collectors with one-offs.
There are more instore than what's on our site, and we promise to get more online soon enough.
Congrats Maria!

Photos: Courtesy of Maria White

Ink and Quill for Raven Kauffman

Ever More: Raven Kauffman in her home studio.

There's a flourishing cadre of designers right here in L.A. more concerned with crafting beauty than cranking out yet another uninspired throwaway. One of our favorites is Raven Kauffman, who finally got props in a profile today by The Los Angeles Times' Booth Moore.
Among other bijoux featured in pictures is the "Exotica"---an emerald silk clutch festooned with Indonesian beetle wings and a 24-karat laser-cut plate. It's pure magnificence. And mine. Thanks to a graceful little birdie. It needs to be on display, too, I've decided. It's too beautiful to be kept stored in a box (even if the embossed so I'm going to have a Lucite box made for it.

A close-up of The "Exotica" in today's Image section.

Photos: Jay L. Clendenin/The Los Angeles Times

Under Wraps

Excuse the interruption.
A momentary pause for sure…As I’ve noted in recent weeks, layout is looming on a book project and I’m finding the dead in deadline ever more a reality as I write like mad to reach those final two words of bliss: “the end.”

It hasn’t been all work and no adventure. At the risk of not finding a few minutes to post (or spin), still been painting the world rose (and knocking back plenty of the chilled pink stuff, too) as we only know how. Lots to share, so please return this weekend for all new entries...

The Birds

"Kids Attacked by Ravens" (1963) by Robert Coburn

Deadline is fast approaching on the manuscript for "The Extraordinary Difference," the history of Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive architect Fred Hayman. From sun up to sun down, I'm consumed by the project. Well, finishing it. So it's no wonder that I was compulsively drawn to this image by Robert Coburn.
Mr. Coburn was the go-to photographer for many Hollywood studios between the 1930s and 1960s, and his black and white work defined many of the period's icons, from William Holden to Rita Hayworth. The Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences awarded him the Still Photography Exhibition Award in 1941 and 1943.

He was part glamor photographer, part documentarian, as his work on the set of Alfred Hitchcock's seminal "The Birds" reveal. This particual image, "Kids Attacked by Ravens" really got me. The manic terror coupled with the fantasy subtext--look closer, and you can just about see the threads holding up the birds--is deliciously surreal.

Fred and I were at the Fahey/Klein Gallery gallery yesterday when we happened on to the exhibition. I was there to finally pick up the Melvin Solosky work I bought last year. Fred immediately gravitated to a photograph in the main exhibition room, that of a red zip-up sweater by Dan Winters. It belonged to Mister Rogers. He snapped it up.

I was still in the other room, going on and on to the gallerina, Celeste, about this raven-kids pic. An 11x14 vintage silver gelatin print, it's wasn't as large as some of the others. But it got me in the gut even more than a grander sized image featuring the director with a raven or the glorious Tippi Hedren in all her Hitchcock blonde splendour.
"It either speaks to you right away or it doesn't," said Fred. And, just like that, he made a gift of it for me. Surreal.

Beyond Woodstock: Opus 40

Rock Star: Harvey Fite raised DIY to an art form in his backyard.

With the opening of “Taking Woodstock,” just one of a barrage of projects commemorating the 40th anniversary of the festival that defined a generation (and has since transformed a town into a tourist stop and fueled an entire industry), we flashback to our own escapade there this summer and, particularly, an opus stamped 40 of another kind altogether.
Opus 40 is a sculptural maze sprawling over 6.5 acres against Overlook Mountain, an artistic marvel of bluestone and nature. Like Sam Rodia's Watts Towers in South L.A., Opus 40 is the work of a single man who worked alone, just his hands, found materials and a vision.

Harvey Fite was a self-taught sculptor who taught at local Bard College when he bought an abandoned quarry in 1938 for $250. The steely bluestone was long quarried from this region to pave the sidewalks of New York City.

Not in Oz Anymore: Andy, Kermit and Janet stroll the bluestone path.

A trip to restore the Mayan ruins in Honduras prompted Fite to begin piling the rubble on his own property into something. Thousands of tablets, bricks, chunks and chips were stacked and guided into terraces hugging pools, sky-high walls, and sweeping amphitheater sections. It was all meant to showcase his individual sculpture, including a nine-ton rock he found nearby. But the environment became the artwork. The result is sublime.
Fite gave it the name, figuring it would take four decades to complete. But he died three years short of that mark in 1976 when his lawn mower accidentally pushed over the ledge of a pit. Death by art. Why not?

We knew nothing of the place, and have since discovered that even friends who've spent long summers in the Hudson area haven't either. At the end of a dirt road between Woodstock and Saugerites, the property is open much of the time, operated as a nonprofit by Fites’ stepson and supported by visitors and members such as our pal Kermit Perlmutter. We visited Kermit and his new bride (and my dear pal) Janet Ozzard at their home nearby, just days after their fantastic wedding in next door Connecticut. And we're forever grateful to them for giving us a morning there.
Drive through Woodstock for the farmer’s market and ice cream if you must. But don’t die without experiencing Opus 40. Like the sound of Hendrix doing “Star Spangled Banner” four decades ago on a farm not far from Fite's place, the sight of Opus 40 will forever rock your world.

View from the yard to the Fite family home.

View from the house facing out to the backyard.

The peaceful silence of the place is only because we're speechless

The Quarry Museum, housing Fite's tools and other works.

(Re)Master Class: The Red Shoes

Moira Shearer as doomed danseur Victoria Page.

Still in awe over this weekend's screening at the Billy Wilder Theater of the newly remastered "The Red Shoes," the 1948 masterpiece that must be seen to be believed.
The magnificent movie by the genius Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger is considered one of the best dance films. But it's not only a film about ballet. This is about the all-consuming nature of art. To that end, it's a lavish revelation.

Death by ruby slippers.

No wonder Martin Scorcese and other leading filmmakers often cite it among their top favorites, an influential work in part because of the then-revolutionary technology that went into creating the saturated colors, not to mention the sets so dominated by surrealism and remarkable cinematography. The costumes, too, are gasp-worthy. And melodramatic as it is, the acting by the likes of Marius Goring and Anton Walbrook, not to mention dancing by Moira Shearer and the rest of the cast, is first-rate.

This weekend's screening was among the first in North America since the remastered work's world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May. An extensive two-year digital restoration went into saving it by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Film Foundation--whose president is Scorcese--along with several funding sources, including the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (the folks behind the Golden Globes).

A Blu-Ray release of the remastered film hit the UK marketplace last week. Let's hope a U.S. rollout not only follows very soon, but so, too, a theater run. It's one film created to be experienced in all its Technicolor, big-screen glory.