Tennessee Williams, playwright and icon, is possibly one of my most favorite people. His plays: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Glass Menagerie, Night of the Iguana, A Streetcar Named Desire, Suddenly Last Summer, Sweet Bird of Youth are unforgettable, decadent, and amazing.

Influenced by the sadness in his own life, particularly the lobotimization of his dear sister Rose as a treatment for her schizophrenia, his work is often unsettling and frank, especially for its time. As he said:
“The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love. Whomever I love and am with most of the time, or whomever I remember most vividly. I think that's true of everyone, don't you? “

After a youth in Mississippi, he made his home in Provincetown, New Orleans, and Key West. Provincetown and New Orleans both honor his memory every year with a Tennessee Williams Festival, the former of which is having its on September 25th to the 28th.

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Posted on June 22, 2008

Max von Sydow's amazing career has spanned sixty years and he has graced the screen in some of the most memorable films of all time. He and his mentor Ingmar Bergman redefined cinema with Wild Strawberries, The Virgin Spring, and the iconic masterpiece The Seventh Seal. But he hasn't kept his foot squarely in the art house.

You'll recognize him as the tired but determined priest in The Exorcist, whose long sweaty dig in the desert initially evokes fear in restless pre teens who worry during sleep overs that maybe they rented the wrong movie and their friends will be bored to tears with “the scariest movie ever”.

He also had a role as an assassin in the late Sydney Pollack's thriller Three Days of the Condor, David Lynch's Dune, Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters and Flash Gordon – a role he defended taking by saying “In Ingmar's movies, I never get to say 'prepare her for my pleasure'.” More recently he starred in an underrated and surprisingly ok new-ish Argento movie, Sleepless, and hopefully got paid a fortune for Rush Hour 3.

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Posted on June 9, 2008

While he's known as the “Givenchy of Rome” Roberto Capucci is not a household name despite his awesome contributions to fashion. He is most famous for the outrageous materials like pebbles and dyed water, and his show stopping extravagant gowns made, as fashion writer Alison Adburgham put it “for an abstract woman, the woman you can never meet”.

This page has some great photos of his work. He was less known when he left the fashion world in the 90's but recently was a huge supporter of Bernhard Willhelm, who he worked with to revitalize the Capucci house in 2003. Both that collection and Spring 2004 can be seen on Style.com.

The Cappuci style has become more wearable than extravagant, but the inventive structuring and shapes are still alive.

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Posted on May 26, 2008

What a trip it would be to walk the streets of London during the swinging sixties and seventies. One of my first stops would be Mr. Freedom, the nutty clothing store of Tommy Roberts. It was a departure from the hippie movement, and looked totally unique in its pop art kookiness in part because of the mad genius of architect and interior designer Jon Wealleans.

Wealleans proposed a space filled with gigantic wire hangers, an armchair made from large set of upholstered false teeth, interlocking seat in the shape of huge puzzle pieces and a giant statue of liberty light fixture.

He also designed the interior to Mr. Feed'ems, the downstairs restaurant that featured food dyed crazy colors (like green mashed potatoes and fuchsia sausages). It's walls featured large poppy murals of hot dogs and ice cream.

A portfolio of Wealleans sketches for the spaces was recently sold at The Best of British Design auction at Sotheby's.

Wealleans was also a collaborator with Led Zeppelin favorite, Paul Reeves and helped with the money is no object refurbishing of the Zep's manager, Peter Grant's Kensington home. Photos of the finished product, one absolutely amazing townhouse, can be seen here from architectural magazines in 1975. Wealleans was extremely nervous about the tough guy Grant's reaction to the project, which took two years, because he didn't see any of the work in progress.

“I opened the door and it may be a clich?, but he literally blotted out the sun,” laughs Wealleans. Reeves, meanwhile, had prudently put some champagne on ice. “He spent around five minutes looking around, not saying a word,” says Reeves.”Then he pronounced. ? gotta say Paul?t's fucking amazing!' We got the champagne out and a couple of grams of coke and everything was alright!”

Wealleans is currently an artist represented by Francis Kyle Gallery.

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Posted on May 12, 2008

The more I learn about the life and work of Jim Steranko, the more honored and excited I am that I got to meet him. As a young man, he was a stage performer; he ate fire and performed slight of hand tricks! (a talent that probably helped him for a while as he commited a string of burglaries as a teen).

He was a magian in his twenties and, according to Wikipedia, he claims to have put the first go-go girls on stage when he was in a rock and roll band. He's always loved the ladies. I could tell by looking at him, even at 69, he's an obvious lady killer. Pompodoured grey hair, shining white teeth, and a sharp white suit. I was blushing as he signed the gorgeous pin up calendar he illustrated (pictured).

That calendar is one of the many projects he took on after leaving his brief but insanely influential stint in the comics biz. He was the man who added pop art and surrealism to comics, always pushing the grapic envelope with his Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. He was innovative not only in the drawing style, but he played with layouts and even incorporated photocollage in his work.

By the mid seventies he was only doing covers for comics, but had branched out to publishing, painting, and conceptual art. Jim Steranko is the man who defiened the look of Indiana Jones!?And he did conceptual work for the exquisite looking Draculca by Coppola.

Is this guy just the greatest or what?!

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Posted on April 28, 2008