Style Icons: Male »Harvey Pekar

RIP

I know that George Steinbrenner passing seems to be the biggest thing to ever happen in the state of New York, but if I ran the news there’d be more mention of the passing of Harvey Pekar. If you weren’t introduced to his self published, mostly autobiographical and highly influential comics, American Splendor, then perhaps you were aware of the unique artist through the movie of the same name.

His work was about the working class life, the mundane (as R Crumb described it “so staggeringly mundane it verges on the exotic.”) and personal anxieties – a far cry from the beginning of comics with their super hero fantasies. He always used artists he admired to illustrate his stories including like minded Crumb and Chester Brown.

He passed away July 12, the cause of death has not been released, but he had suffered with prostate cancer.

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Posted on July 18, 2010

Hunks »Nicholas Confessore

Times Reporter

Ok I’ll admit that there’s something distinctly Patrick Bateman, or at least Jay McInerney/Bret Easton Ellis privileged evil about the looks of Times reporter Nicholas Confessore and I’ll admit it’s probably unfair to judge a book by his cover, but here we are.

Besides, I find Cofessore’s insights somewhat, well, insightful when he one ups the other reporters during the reporter round up on our favorite early evening local show Inside City Hall (which is better than ever with the dismissal of shockingly terrible Dominick Carter because of the lovely and tough (Jim crush) Elizabeth Kaledin). Well, he one ups style wise at least – imagine Jordan Catalano in a designer suit with a quirky (but expensive) tie plopped down among men and women that look like, well, normal hard working, no sleep, lots of cigarette Albany reporters. His baby blues stand out a mile away in the crowd and no doubt the pretty boy looks have gained him as many haters as admirers.

Gawker calls him a party-ho, but of course can’t help but take a photo of him at every single party he attends – usually with equally cute long time girlfriend Noelle Hancock on his arm. She’s also a reporter of sorts. Though while he was part of the crack team that took down Eliot Spitzer, she helped launch Us Weekly’s entertainment blog (laugh if you want – but I bet I know whose articles you’d secretly read more often).

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Posted on June 13, 2010

Style Icons: Male »Roland Topor

Artist and Renaissance Man of the Surreal

There’s so much awesomeness to admire in the career of Roland Topor that it’s hard to know where to begin. As a visual artist he’s created surreal and creepy magic. As an actor he was Renfield in Herzog’s Nosferatu and had a cameo in my favorite Yugoslavian filmmaker, Dusan Makavejev’s Sweet Movie. As a writer his novel The Tenant was adapted into the fantastic Roman Polanski adaptation and as an designer he (along with Rene Leloux )created one of the most visually stunning animated films of all time, Fantastic Planet. I’m in awe.

Click here for the rest of Roland Topor

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Posted on March 21, 2010

Style Icons: Male »JD Salinger

A Beloved Author

J.D. Salinger is one of the writers who has moved me most. I try to read Nine Stories once every couple years and its contents still touch me, so I was bummed to hear of his recent natural, though in no way untimely (the man was 91), passing.

I’m sure the publishing world is racked with curiosity as to whether or not this means that new work will finally emerge from the notoriously reclusive writer’s New Hampshire lair (or whether or not Salinger’s heirs will immediately sell all the rights in the manner of the Seuss widow, finally giving Hollywood the chance to cast Shia Labeouf as Holden Caulfield and subject the author’s oeuvre to the various exploitations and degradations Seuss’s work suffered after his death), but the books he’s already left behind are so amazing, legendary, and life-changing that if you haven’t read any of his stories (which I don’t believe many of you haven’t) don’t delay in discovering one of America’s most perfect bodies of work.

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Posted on January 31, 2010

Style Icons: Female »Carrie Fisher

Space Princess

The on-screen work of the great Carrie Fisher inspired past Halloween costumes of both myself and my sister (see below/after the jump) but it’s the woman herself that I love the most. Her wit, nuttiness, frankness, and wild charm were all clear and on display during her one woman show, Wishful Drinking, that we saw this weekend. She’s spectacular in her flaws.

Click here for the rest of Carrie Fisher

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Posted on January 17, 2010

Style Icons: Female »Nellie Bly

Living in a time where being “a straight up bitch” is worn like a badge of pride (clearly I've been watching too much reality TV) it's nice to learn about a true heroic woman with integrity and guts like Nellie Bly.

In 1887, she faked insanity in order to uncover the horrific conditions in insane asylums and her subsequent article and book Ten Days in the Madhouse prompted grand jury investigation and lasting changes to the mental health system.

If that weren't enough, she also once held the record for traveling around the world – this feat inspired an amusement park that still stands in Bensonhurst. All done with stylish panache in hounds-tooth suits and lace collars.

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Posted on July 13, 2009

Style Icons: Male »Fabio

Fabio Why do I mention it now?

Because I happened across the photo of the fabled meeting of the man that I mentioned in my previous entry. Do enjoy!

Here's what I said back on 2/12/07:

My family and I actually met Fabio at a strip mall book signing tour he was on to promote his self written romances “Pirate”, “Viking”, and “Rogue”. And yes, I have a singed copy of each along with a photograph of me with the hunk.

I have to say, I saw Fabio in a whole new light that day as he stayed extra hours to make sure that every lady got a signature and a hug or kiss. Since then he's earned even more of my respect with his phenomenal album, Fabio After Dark, and his part in the sadly defunct oxygen show Mr. Romance.

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Posted on June 15, 2009

Style Icons: Female »Lynn Yaeger

Icon

While it’s no surprise that The Village Voice is hard up these days, and even though it’s been viewed as less and less relevant daily, some of their staff is extremely awesome and in particular Lynn Yaeger is a city icon who gave thirty years of her wit to the paper. So, of course, in a clear last breath of desperation, they laid the wonderful woman off!
Her distinctive, bright orangey-red short bang crop, her Betty Boop lips, and her dots of glowing blush makes her instantly recognizable on the streets, more that once my day’s been made just seeing her. She is obsessed with clothes and as a woman after my own heart who believes in individual style (of which she had plenty). In a recent interview she said:

quot;I think people should wear whatever they like!”,?”There are no no-nos!” and “Be yourself! Ignore the rules.”

As everyone else has also predicted, I am sure Yaeger will find a home and happiness with a career like hers under her belt, and it truly will probably hurt the Village Voice more than her, but maybe she can pick up on the career she once told Refinery 29 she would take on if she ever lost her job: “helping ripped-off people take on the system” and demand justice for her fellow pink slip legend Nat Hentoff.

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Posted on January 12, 2009

Style Icons: Female »Martha Stewart

Queen of Taste

Just look at Martha hawling that greenery back to her homestead with sheer rosy cheek willpower and been to jail business magnate grit. Say what you will about the woman, but I love her. I think she got too much for her crime for being a successful (and some say unlikably ballsy) lady. I’ve heard first hand accounts that make her sound both unintentionally hideous and surprisingly witty, funny, and actually human.

I was never the hugest fan of her show, and found the MST3K type interpretation of it, Whatever Martha, to be disappointingly annoying as it could have been ingenous in the hands of better and funnier people. I have been an on and off again subscriber to her magazines though and there is really no denying her impact on the art of asthetics in the past few decades.

I think she ushered in the whole craft movement, even if it was sometimes in reaction to her. In general the idea of persuing good taste and making our surrounding pleasing has now become at least seemingly at everyone’s fingertips with her holiday decorating ideas and recipes.

She’s also tons of fun to read on her own blog, which she really actually seems to write herself.

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Posted on December 22, 2008

Style Icons: Female »Judy Blume

Author

Judy Blume is more than just a talented and wise writer with a smashing smile and great age defying cheekbones.

She changed the face of reading for young women, she offered popular stories that kids could relate to and she never shied away from the realities of life in her writing.

Her boldness has often and repeatedly made her a target of censors which in turn has made Blume even more awesome in my book as an advocate for free speech.

She works with the National Coalition Against Censorship and is probably as horrified as the rest of us about the possibility of Palin becoming Vice President. While the stories of Palin’s plan to ban books has been partially untrue (that list she supposedly made of books was not likely to be her own list, just a list of commonly banned books and she never specified the banning of any particular books), she still “asked the library how she could go about banning books,” according to TIME magazine.

Blume is also very humble and personable about her talents. She’s said that she simply as always making up stories in her head and once she had two kids to tell them to, began writing them down. She was twenty seven when she began to write seriously, which can make anyone who feels like it’s too late to become a success at doing what they love feel better.

I doubt there’s many people my age who can’t recall at least one Judy Blume book in their life.