Halloween Baby

is what I am. Quite a lot to compete with, living in America. But always a perfect excuse for the multitude of parties being thrown left, right and center...

Loved this shoot photographed by Ruven Afanador. And as for those anatomical posters...

First images are of Sedlec Ossuary in Kutna Hora from PseudoRandom's Flickersite

Whitewashed...

Another practically perfect Parisian apartment...

Images by Amador Toril via French by Design

Through the Looking Glass (XIX)

The nineteenth in the Through the Looking Glass series of photographs...

Photograph by Andy Irvine (William Stafford Gallery)

"Phyllis Gordon takes her pet cheetah shopping in London, 1939" Via here

Motion Capture

I am currently obsessed with the photographs of Eadweard Muybridge - coined the Father of the Motion Picture and known for his ground-breaking work in the 1870's. His rapid action photography of all things in motion pushed the limits of early photography. As the creator of the Zoopraxiscope, he was quite a force to be reckoned with. This extended beyond photography. Upon discovering that his wife had a lover, he sought out the culprit with the following words, "Good evening, Major, my name is Muybridge, and here's the answer to the letter you sent my wife". He then promptly killed the Major with a single gunshot. In court, he pleaded insanity due to a blow to the head in a stagecoach accident!

It is doubtful that he filmed his wife's lover in rapid motion. 

Pics via here, here, here

Our House at the end of our Street (III)

The continuing saga of our house goes as follows: After we finally managed to persuade the previous owner to part with the building, our next challenge was to 'oust' the two tenants on the first floor (hereinafter known as Weirdo #1 and Weirdo #2). Their sole possessions consisted of two mattresses, two computers, a shotgun, and a cat with elephantitis of the cajones. Over the years, it had just simply lifted its tail and sprayed. The next order of business for us - at this point un-jaded and not yet cynical - was to paint the two drawing rooms and the diningroom (the kitchen we would tackle later.) But, ridding the house of its odor (thanks to Weirdo #1, Weirdo #2 and Mr. Balls) would prove to be the most difficult. Thankfully, when the aforementioned duo went to jail for fraud, the odor finally went away. It is not known where Mr. Balls ended up...

Jean Seberg

What do Jean Seberg and Baltimore have in common? As an expat living in Paris, she was deeply indebted to a girl in Baltimore who periodically sent her large jars of peanut butter... a commodity she longed for while in France.

A prolific actress (let me tell you, it is pretty impressive to have completed 37 films before one's 40th birthday), there is still much controversy surrounding her life and death - especially due to the fact that she become active in left wing political groups in the late 1960's. She, (along with Jane Fonda) especially supported the revolutionary leftist organization, The Black Panthers. This caught the attention of J. Edgar Hoover who considered her a genuine liability. In an attempt to have her 'neutralised', it is reported that the FBI ran a smear campaign - fabricating a letter which implied that the father of her child was not her husband, but rather a member of the Black Panthers. The resulting scandal caused her to give birth prematurely to a stillborn child. The story goes that at a press conference, she presented the flabbergasted reporters with her dead baby. The act, while extreme, put paid to the rumors. But the FBI continued to pursue her relentlessly, until she moved to Paris.

Tragically, Jean Seberg was prone to bouts of deep depression. She tried to take her own life on each subsequent anniversary of her infant child's death. She even threw herself in front of one of the trains in the Metro and just survived. Finally, in 1979, she went missing in Paris and was found eleven days later in the backseat of her car, allegedly having committed suicide. 

Seberg was buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris, her funeral was attended by the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, who now share a grave just metres away...

À bout de souffle, (Hôtel de Suède, Paris) taken by Raymond Cauchetier, 1959

Jean-Luc Godard, right, directing Jean-Paul Belmando and Jean Seberg in “Breathless.”

And one color photograph...

Images via here, here, here, here, here, here and The New York Times

Notes via here

Marc Jacobs, darling - You-ooh-ooh-ooh send me

Honest you do...

There is no doubting your brilliance.

For the Fall/Winter 2011-2012 ad campaign, the Louis Vuitton Artistic Director revealed the following:

“Steven Meisel and I met and decided we would do this wonderful story of beautiful vintage cars, little dogs and fresh-faced young women. It’s a very classic scenario, and of course it suggests travel, but I think we gave it a fresh, modern and sometimes a little bit naughty, tongue-in-cheek spin.”

Truly, the  paragon of exquisiteness and the very ultimate in luxury... and I really need those pugs.

 Via here and here

My Baltimore - Costumerie on Howard

I have heard Baltimore described as The City that Reads; The City that Bleeds; Bodymore Murderland; Harm City; Charm City and The Greatest City in America. Its reputation not exactly helped by the tone set by the brillant Wire...
Living in the heart of the city always yields some pretty far-out surprises, practically around every corner. Here is a perfect case-in-point - just a block away from my house, is A.T. Jones & Sons. Now owned by George Goebel, the veteran Baltimore magician and Houdini expert, this costumerie has been around for 138 years, and is renowned in theatrical and operatic circles - a visit to the vast space is rather like walking onto the set of your own opera - my mouth always agape in sheer wonderment. Caution: not for Clownophobes...

Read more about A.T. Jones & Sons here
(708 N Howard St., Baltimore, MD 21201)

Images by Philippa Berrington-Blew