Tuesday, 11 January 2011

Thought of the Day (Brain-Work)


I cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers when one has no field upon which to exert them? Crime is commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those which are commonplace have any function upon earth.

-- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four, 1890

Monday, 10 January 2011

A Death in the Afternoon


  
   I freely admit that I am not a champagne connoisseur on account of a lack of enjoyment of its  relentless effervescence and the unexpected removal of my tastebuds' functions that comes with it

   Champagne cocktails, on the other hand, are a beverage class I'm more amenable to. Most recently at a gathering in London, I was seen sampling a few of the literary-pedigreed concoction known as a Death in the Afternoon. It strikes me as one of Ernest Hemingway's more undersung contributions to mankind's progress - probably because it's overshadowed by the book - and dates back to a celebrity cocktail recipes collection published in 1935

   Traditionally served in a champagne flute, one shot or ounce of absinthe is normally recommended for the beguiling, milky green result. Personally, I err on the side of "mix to taste;"  the usual result is that one only half notices the champagne, since the merge between its liquid sweetness and the ludic smoothness of the absinthe is rather effortless. For champagnes, I suggest a cava or a cheaper brand in order to avoid disrupting their better qualities. Curiously, I recall that it more or less cured a migraine I'd been nursing through the night - truly, a gift that keeps on giving

Tuesday, 4 January 2011

Leather Lust Object No.5 - A Success Story


   I'm in pain

   I don't know if it's that exquisite kind of pain that fashionable women will sometimes talk about after a few hours of suffering the constraints of a lust object on their feet. But I will admit that my first few wears of these vintage bespoke John Lobb dress shoes did include me subsuming my discomfort at a slightly too small insole by telling myself, "This is what you wanted, you vainglorious bastard!"

   Of course, if I really wanted pain, I'd not stop at my feet; I'd have run off to the nearest poorly lit basement in Soho or its newly minted Dirty East London cousin Dalston, asked for a custom leather daddy ensemble to go with these heels and, by special request, have some of the spikes placed on the inside of the outfit. Then I'd have gone out dancing. I like to insist on a complete experience

   Never trust anyone that tells you, "Blisters are part of the fun." Oh, there is certainly a powerful attraction to being at eye level with the top shelf at the newsagent, but it is moderated by the pressing need to take the heels off and run hither to the cobbler to arrange a good stretching. If you know what I mean



   But those are merely the positives. The negatives are a newfound difficulty to complete toe touch exercises and a nascent proclivity for boot cut trousers. The latter is more trying because it's apparent that good ones are rare birds on the eBay

   All in all, I am going to have fun with these. The original owner seemed to as well; the collection he liquidated included over a dozen of similarly lasted 1960s - '70s "Mod Lobb" delights in styles such as cognac lizard with horsebit, a number of black alligators, dark brown ostrich, off white suede and sky blue leather correspondent, and calf with that most Scottish of footwear adornments, a buckle. On such profligacies alone, this may be the sort of fellow that they write limited edition autobiographies about to outrage and delight the various species of aesthete that abound


   If you'd like to partake in a similarly new perspective of the world from the bottom up, these are for sale. I'm a touch surprised that such heels have been less common since the 1970s - surely an extra two inches is most men's poorly hidden desire?


Friday, 17 December 2010

An Important Message From Gay Talese


   Tailors, as Mr. Talese outlines, are an endangered species. Especially if they are good.  Today, I suspect that the only good tailor is an endangered one, mind you. The conniptions fits that I see greeting a number of the suits displayed for online assessment might bear this notion out. Extra iGent vituperation points are awarded if it's revealed that the suit was worked on by an assistant cutter, with further bonuses offered if an apprentice was touching the shears during the process

   I digress; this screed, which I first saw last year, is resonant in its undimmed passion for "the needle and thread" and whether viewers share Talese's tastes or not, his instinct for customisation reveals how deep his passion really runs. His stuff is pricey; of that there is no doubt, but it's a consumptive fellow who only stops at price. Talese, I imagine, is an ideal bespoke customer because he likes to be as involved as possible, he takes risks - who else wears goat's ear lapels? - and he has the sort of discernment that ultimately makes his look his own

   Really, I'd wager that this would hold true if he was forced to buy nothing but mall brands for a year

Friday, 19 November 2010

Wan Chai/At the Races


   I schlepped to the Hong Kong Expo at Wan Chai on a Wednesday, which was perhaps too deeply commercial to be of any worth to tourists. The guest speakers, there to expound on matters of Asian investment and infrastructure, would probably have been interesting for those concerned with the scale of such things

   That night, I joined the weekly pilgrimage to the racetrack at Happy Valley. I'm not much of a gambling man in this sense (primarily because I bring others greater fortune than I do myself), but food, beverages and camaraderie are in abundance, and horse riding is better viewed live. The photographs do not clearly connote the scale of the track, but I think they still capture some of its expansiveness

   Besides, it is certainly a setting in which wearing Junya Watanabe Man S/S07 can be considered fitting

Thursday, 18 November 2010

"Terry"

   Semi-regular viewers of this column are aware that I occasionally champion the dressing of men who don't resemble tryouts for the next Willy Wonka remake. Today, I'd like to host a pictorial of the mostly modest (but resolutely talented) Terence Stamp:

 Top two: in Modesty Blaise, as dressed by Douglas Hayward and Mr. Fish. This caper also stars Monica Vitti and Dirk Bogarde, boasts a memorable Gorillaz-sampled themesong and was high on my To-Do List, as are Stamp's memoirs
In Divina Creatura (aka The Divine Nymph, 1975), which I've also yet to see
With former lover and 1960s Face, Jean Shrimpton

   I am not up to date on Mr. Stamp's oeuvre - his smaller roles in recent comedy vehicle fare notwithstanding - but every facet of his fairly protean persona regularly makes an impact. Watching him toying exasperatedly, pathetically and yet thoroughly evilly with Samantha Eggar in The Collector is always a touch uncomfortable - his character's actions are the height of confused, tortured desire yet never less than unpleasant, not unlike the emotionally beset protagonist of Michael Powell's Peeping Tom. Elsewhere, his cold, forceful turns in Oliver Stone's Wall Street and Steven Soderbergh's The Limey juxtapose with the likes of his camp antics in drag classic Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and the curious, iconic mixture of both modes that is Superman and Superman II's General Zod (only a Swinging Sixties survivor and sex symbol could order others to kneel before him as if it was his birthright)


   But on and offscreen, when it is necessary, the man can surely dress. He has a natural sort of ease in his clothing whilst suggesting little concern at all with staying fashionable. Certainly, he adapts to the prevailing winds of his eras with aplomb, but usually in the most unfussy and almost stripped down manner. Relatively speaking, that is

   Even in the modern age, he remains a hat person:


   Sometimes beguilingly elegant and often louchely casual, I will take one Terence Stamp over a myriad of today's on and offline men's style idols. Attitude counts

Light Up the Night


   Any visitor to Hong Kong's shores will likely have taken in this extravaganza at least once and I did, too, arriving for the 8pm start in front of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre at Tsim Sha Tsui. Unfortunately, I spent the majority of my viewing inwardly laughing at the cod-Nintendo music - and given my fond ownership of various Nintendo soundtracks, that speaks volumes

   The actual thought behind A Symphony of Lights is cogent, I feel - almost every city looks better at night, particularly a gleaming metropolis like Hongkers that offers densely packed, almost foreboding skyscraping by day, but blossoms into luminescent, celebratory flamboyance by night. That the performances are heavy on symbolism speaks to a particularly national and cultural pride, and I certainly like that a city is not afraid to show itself off in such an expressive fashion. But oy, the music...

   Also, for what it's worth, I suspect that it's sponsored by Samsung

Monday, 15 November 2010

Schemer

   Anyone seeking guidance in amassing elegant furniture, accoutrements and high-class baubles could do worse than look for inspiration in the recently auctioned former belongings of Ponzi schemer and convict Bernard L. Madoff and his wife Ruth

   Certainly, what I've seen of their blink-and-miss artwork selection speaks to the genteel preoccupations of the gilded rich and the overall aura of the pieces seem dismayingly restrained, but the 18th and 19th century home furnishings, along with gleefully cheeky outliers like the bull-shaped footstool in leather demonstrate that the "bad guys" almost always enjoy fine decor (and speaking of dismayingly restrained, it seemed rather obvious that Mr. Madoff sought to construct a quiet, serious and respectable identity, like other men of his tastes, out of Lobb, Charvet and Turnbull & Asser - and not with the subtle, ludic polish of an Ahmet Ertegun, either). The jewellery collection was, in my eyes, the clear highlight. I might have reacted emotionally to seeing the timepiece collection, in small part due to seeing a platinum Cartier Ronde Solo amongst the solid gold Patek Philippes, Piagets and Audemars-Piguets, and in large part due to dropping an iron on my foot whilst trying to read the interweb simultaneously. Ordinarily, I'm a great multitasker

   I only wish I could see the expensive bonfire that will be lit by the fellow whose $1,700 bought him a selection of Mr. Madoff's underwear - all because he wanted the socks. I'm not even sure many of them are silk. Maybe the Prada pantyhose was the true gem

Bubba Sparxxx - Deliverance (2003)

 I left off of mama's with my thumb in the wind
The leaves on the ground, winter's comin' again
Solid on the surface as I crumble within
But legends are made out of vulnerable men
So on the brink of death I still manage livin' life
'Cause so rarely in this world are these chances given twice
I indeed sold my soul, without glancing at the price
No instructions when I was handed this device
But with what I did get, I was more than generous
Put others over self on several instances
But I'm back on my feet without a hint of bitterness
And one way or another I shall have deliverance
So I say

   Another review that I wrote six years ago focused on the widely underappreciated sophomore cut from Southern boy and Timbaland alum, Bubba Sparxxx

   In 2003, Timbaland was perceived to have begun a decline in his creative and commercial prowess that would last until his recruitment of Nate 'Danja' Hills and their highly populist and propulsive creations for Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake in 2006. In truth, Timothy Moseley was as restlessly inventive as in previous years - when not mixing the clip-clops of horses with flamenco and updating  doo wop swing for an almost perfect r&b record that went unreleased - Simple Girl by Kiley Dean - he was interpolating and sampling recent hits into a country-slanted hip hop album that was as offbeat and contemplative as any Lee Hazlewood number 

   His MC friend wasn't half bad either:

    In which the best known of Timbaland's roster of underrated protégés hits back against the haters, the shamers and those who'd rather forget he ever existed. The essence of the album is Bubba's on-record character, more roundly developed and emotionally invested in than the previous record, with music and beats to match from Tim (with a little bit of Organized Noize to garnish). Importantly, Bubba's way with a rhyme and a microphone carry equal weight with Tim's surprising yet totally sensible bluegrass funk, country crunk, chase scene torch songs and ever excellent ass-shakers (Tim's diminished presence on the second half prevents this from being 2003's perfect hip hop album, but when on point, he's ever the hard act to follow - how the hell is 'Warrant' so confidently funky, mysterious and addictive when it's got barely no beats to speak of?)
   He's got a convincingly guilty conscience on 'She Tried', acts the good time party boy fool on 'Hootenanny' and the ultra-catchy top 10 single that never was, 'Comin' Round' (fiddles! synths! squealing tyres!), and he is straight up convincing about the New South signifier. I believe in Bubba when he's evoking a hard past that may or may not have been on 'Nowhere', because he's mastered the art of convincing soul-bearing on record. And when 'Nowhere', with it's last line of 'If I'm nowhere/let that nowhere/be nowhere near a worry' and the equally underrated Kiley Dean leading a lovely chorus of 'Cry Me A River' (what's done is done, eh, Bubba?), concludes its 5 mins plus of pure symphonic hip hop beauty, Bubba tells us there's nothing he can't Overcome and I hope he's right. Sooner or later, he deserves to have his Deliverance
Recommended tracks: Comin' Round, Nowhere, Warrant



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