Contradictions

“The architects say you can’t touch the
walls,” Elbaz lamented, drinking a tiny glass of icy
vodka. “I say, ‘How can you have sex if you
don’t touch the skin?‘ “ While the full text
of the New Yorker article from which quotation
above was taken isn’t yet available online, this post from New
York magazine’s fashion blog, The
Cut, highlights some of his whimsical, sometimes tragic,
remarks on design and life. His unexpected and entirely apt
comparison of walls and skin, remodeling and sex, are just the
types of parallels that only a non-native speaker of English could
make. I’m amazed by the weird and wonderful expressions that
Elbaz uses in the interview– his native language, Hebrew, and the
language of his adopted home, French, have melded into the most
fantastical English.

Alber Elbaz
with Linda Evangelista and Lisa Simpson in Lanvin, as illustrated
by Julius Preite for the August 2007 issue of Harper's
Bazaar

Influence

“But now, my love, we are here, we are now, and those other times are running elsewhere.”

-A.S. Byatt, from Possession

In this isolated line, the author has written his own best recommendation. I have no clue what this book is about, yet I cannot wait to read it.

***

I did something very strange in the first sentence above. I wrote “his” in reference to an author who gave me nothing but two initials to glean his/her gender. Why did I assume it was a man? I feel unsettled, and need to give this more thought.

A. S. Byatt is a woman.

Heartbreaker

L: Family photograph, R: Anjelica Huston. From "Bob Richardson" Editor: Terry Richardson

“He never said, ‘I love you.’ It was weakness in me to want to hear that—actions speak louder than words—I salute you dad.”
-Bob Richardson, on son Terry

The father of bona fide pervert-cum-commercial sweetheart Terry Richardson, Bob Richardson was a fashion photographer who, in the sixties and seventies, pioneered some of the techniques that are still pervasive in the industry. Regrettably, he’s remembered more as a tragic, schizophrenic albatross to his son than as the substantial artist he was. He wrote extensively throughout his life, one riddled with addictions and bouts of mental illness; his words and images have been collected in Bob Richardson. Bob’s photographs and writing alike are…sensitive, luscious specimens.

Relevance

I write this from my couch while watching the Academy Awards, as the sounds of a most clamorous montage accompanying the Best Animated Feature defile my ears. Luckily, a Charlotte Bronte quotation from the brilliant Tina Fey’s  speech introducing the nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay drowns out the din:

“But this I know; the writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master—something that at times strangely wills and works for itself…. If the result be attractive, the World will praise you, who little deserve praise; if it be repulsive, the same World will blame you, who almost as little deserve blame.”
-Charlotte Brontë

I tend to have a lot of disdain for terms like “gift,” “blessed,” and “lucky,” as they trivialize effort as an essential factor in the creative equation. Lately though I’ve found myself softening to the idea the more I struggle with mercurial inspiration. It eases my mind to accept the notion of genius as a bright spark that exists beyond me, that I can only see when it’s very dark.

Addendum

I posted the quotation below spontaneously and very early this morning (what a morning- and night- it was.) I realized how banal of me it was to post a quotation with no explanation as to why I found it relevant or amusing; for that I apologize. This is not going to be that sort of blog, so if you’re looking for an inspirational quote of the day, I will only let you down.

My fascination with non-native turns of speech has been documented; the reason I deemed Kaiser Karl’s words worthy of a post (and clearly the standards are sky high) was his reference to the present as “secondhand.” That he, who is arguably the most influential living figure in fashion, should use a sartorial term to describe a state of mind is apropos of everything. I find his concision and ingenuity with language quite charming.

A snack for thought

“The worst thing is when friends say, ‘Remember the good old days?’ Forget about the good old days! That just makes your present secondhand. What is interesting is now.”

Karl Lagerfeld