Madame Lamb

monday

2010-02-08T06:32:00.001-05:00

it's impossible for me to listen to queen's "crazy little thing called love" and not get all jazzed up. the tune owned the no.1 spot on american charts almost exactly 30-years-ago to the day* . freddie mercury allegedly wrote the song in less than ten minutes while soaking in the tub between recording sessions at the bayerischer hof hotel in munich. enjoy the video:

*1980 was thirty years ago...

Queen Crazy little thing called love
Uploaded by timanou76. - Explore more music videos.

weekend

2010-02-06T23:09:00.000-05:00

cowabungaaaaa dudes.

xoxo,

i just chatrouletted with the jonas brothers

2010-02-05T11:40:00.008-05:00

madame lamb exclusive. note: i had to see like 15 penises before i got to see the jobros.

The Spring 2010 Couture

2010-02-03T15:42:00.013-05:00

Haute Couture (that is to say actual, made-to-measure, artisanal clothing as opposed to the "juicy" variety) is generally either revered as the highest plateau of the fashion monde, or reviled as an inaccessible and dying pseudo-art. The truth probably lies somewhere in between, and a small number of fashion houses continue to produce two couture seasons each year in an attempt to foster a tradition that once defined the wardrobes of women across the globe. Two of these houses are Chanel (with the infamous Karl Lagerfeld designing for the ultra-modern girly-girl), and Givenchy (designed by the relatively young Riccardo Tisci, who focuses on a darker, more sexual parisian female archetype).

While designer ready-to-wear becomes more costly and intricate with each passing season -often due to techniques borrowed from the couture- designers such as these continue to take clothing to an entirely different level with the Haute Couture presentations. Each garment can takes hundreds of hours of labor to produce (the beading, crystals, embroidery, lace, and feathers take vast amounts of time to construct) and can cost as much as a modest suburban home. Whatever your opinion on such a concept may be, it is nearly impossible for anyone with any interest in design or art not to be blown away by the immense amount of consideration and multi-disciplinary talent that goes into the production of these hypertrophied, conceptual garments.

Chanel Haute Couture by Karl Lagerfeld:

Givenchy Haute Couture by Riccardo Tisci:

Photos: Gianni Pucci and Monica Feudi / Gorunway.com

Masekela'n

2010-02-03T10:18:00.007-05:00

Merkin Muff and I were watching Shaun White crush it at the X-games a few nights ago when he pointed out to me that Sal Masekela, the host of the event, is the son of the famous jazz musician Hugh Masekela. Hugh grew up in South Africa and for awhile his songs protested apartheid and slavery. Meanwhile Sal keeps us up to speed on the day's top entertainment stories and gets us stoked about gnarly mctwists and double corks -- what a dynamic family!

download:

Hugh Masekela - "Grazing in the Grass"

peggy guggenheim; one of the great art collectors

2010-02-03T08:30:00.005-05:00

Peggy Guggenheim, niece of Solomon Guggenheim, was your average new york party girl-cum-socialite until her 30s when she became enamored with the bohemian art scene. she then channeled her energy (and $$$$) into emerging artistic movements and developed one of the most spectacular art collections of the 20th century. her friends, an impressive list of artists, included duchamp, hemingway, man ray, pollock, joyce, miró, kandinsky, ernst, and picasso...to name a few.

i first became infatuated with peggy when i was sixteen and learned of her contributions to the arts from Tom Wolfe's essay "The Painted Word". this spring, i further familiarized myself with peggy reading her memoir titled "Confessions of an Art Addict". the book mostly concerned her personal life; friends, foes, lovers, apprentices. but, as one would guess, peggy had a hard time separating her personal life from her investments so the book also reveals how she managed, acquired, and discarded some of the most iconic pieces of the 20th century (think female don juan).

a particularly amusing peggy anecdote is the story of her 1948 bronze by marino marini called "The Angel of the City" that sat in the front garden of her venetian palazzo (shown below). the sculpture was endowed with a detachable (screw-in) penis that peggy would then remove when prude guests stopped by to see her collection. enjoy these photos of peggy.

Heiress Peggy Guggenheim sunbathing on terrace of her Venier dei Leoni Palace on the Grand Canal (Venice, 1953 - Life Magazine)

guggenheim with a calder piece.... her marino marini "The Angel of the City", bronze

photographed by man ray in 1924.... flanked by art editor Alfred Frankfurter and his wife as they examine her modern art collection at her venier dei leoni palace on the grand canal. (venice, 1953 - Life Magazine)

vanilla tapes

2010-02-02T17:56:00.008-05:00

as a long time clash fan, i was pumped when i recently came across the bonus disc on 2004's 25th anniversary reissue of london calling. known as the vanilla tapes, the disc is an early/demo version of the album that existed only as a bootleg before it received the digital treatment. while most of the songs are something that perhaps only a clash nut will appreciate, after digging through all of the demo's and early sketches of the album's classic tunes (a version of paul simonon's "guns of brixton" known only at the point of the vanilla tapes' recording as "paul's tune" stuck out for me) i've managed to cull a few that may interest other people. check em out.

here's a cover of dylan's "the man in me" (original below) with some tasty reggae flavor:
the clash - "the man in me"
bob dylan - "the man in me"

and an original that for whatever reason never made the cut...another reggae number:
the clash - "where you gonna go (soweto)"

Picasso's Third Dimension

2010-02-01T11:00:00.000-05:00

here's a beautiful portrait that Gjon Mili took of Picasso drawing his signature Bull in 1949. the photograph is titled "Picasso's Third Dimension" and was part of a series of photographs Gjon Mili created using flashlights. he called them "space drawings". Mili achieved this effect by opening the shutter in total darkness to capture only the light emitting from Picasso's flashlight, and then using a quick flash to capture Picasso and the background.

Read more about the photograph at VP Gallery.

brad pitt's prank

2010-02-01T10:03:00.001-05:00

Brad Pitt, on Charlie Rose, recalls pulling a devious prank on a friend while they were on vacation in Mexico.

new gorillaz

2010-02-01T00:26:00.010-05:00

i'm fancying the new gorillaz track “stylo” off their forthcoming album Plastic Beach. "stylo" features bobby womack and mos def and has a sound reminiscent of new order. sample the track below.

download: gorillaz - "stylo"

on a related note, i'm super stoked that gorillaz are headlining coachella. i'm still finalizing my travel plans...will any madame lamb readers be at coachella?

tgif

2010-01-29T19:54:00.003-05:00

blasting off to the weekend.

xoxo,

hitting the big time

2010-01-28T17:51:00.013-05:00

if anyone's looking for some solid extras, my cousin and i do a really good job in this surfer blood video.

check my cousin at 2:46 in the red striped shirt - standing around and looking cool until he is taken by surprise and mauled by the lead singer as he crowd surfs his way to the stage. well done. shortly thereafter, at 2:54, the back of my head appears - blue shirt, bobbing my head slightly, but not enough to draw attention away from the main spectacle. so smooth.

respond if interested.

download:
surfer blood - "swim"

RIP JD Salinger

2010-01-28T14:30:00.005-05:00

JD Salinger passed this morning at the age of 91. i feel like salinger's death has strangely coincided with the end of the stage in my life the catcher in the rye so brilliantly speaks to...or has it? of salinger, one critic put it best, "he was in this world, but not of it."

read salinger's obit at the new york times and kindly add the catcher in the rye to your re-read list. here are some ML and friends' favorite salinger quotes. please leave yours in the comments section.

update: the new yorker has published seven of jd salinger's new yorker stories from 1946-1965:

That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can. - holden caulfield

Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody. -holden caulfield

I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall. But I don't honestly know what kind.... It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college. Then again, you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, "It's a secret between he and I." Or you may end up in some business office, throwing paper clips at the nearest stenographer. I just don't know. - mr. antolini

The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it. - from Seymour: an Introduction

If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late? Nobody.- holden caulfield

i was sixteen then, and i'm seventeen now, and sometimes i act like i'm about thirteen. it's really ironical, because i'm six foot two and a half and i have gray hair. i really do. the one side of my head-the right side-is full of millions of gray hairs. i've had them ever since i was a kid. and yet i still act sometimes like i was only about twelve. everybody says that, especially my father. it's partly true, too, but it isnt all true. people always think something's all true. i dont give a damn, except that i get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. sometimes i act a lot older than i am-i really do-but people never notice it. people never notice anything. - holden caulfield

it was nice, though, when we got out of the dining room. there were about three inches of snow on the ground, and it was still coming down like a madman. it looked pretty as hell, and we all started throwing snowballs and horsing around all over the place. it was very childish, but everybody was really enjoying themselves. - holden caulfield

stitch out loud

2010-01-28T00:07:00.000-05:00

my co-worker is the brains and fingers behind ST!#CH OUT LOUD. view more of her cross stitch witticisms on flickr and shop the shop at etsy.

Mr. X Stitch is a newlywed with a backyard full of chickens, so I came up with this little ditty for the gent. He of course is by no means a simple man...but I thought "a witty manbroiderer surrounded by a bunch of hot chicks" didn't roll of the tongue as easily. ;)

Rain drops on roses and whiskers on kittens...

must be the season of the..

let's rehearse

2010-01-27T16:49:00.007-05:00

harvey weinstein gives director errol morris a PR lesson prior to the release of the thin blue line. via /film.

monday

2010-01-25T08:36:00.004-05:00

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

art by polly morgan

the soft pack

2010-01-24T21:59:00.010-05:00

this afternoon i dipped into the soft pack, a san diego rock band. they have a heavier post-punk influence than other bands popping out of socal and i'm digging it (and their name). the soft pack's self-titled LP drops february 2nd on kemado records. if you're in new york, swing by cake shop on february 5th and catch their studio release show for free. here's "answer to yourself":

the soft pack :: answer to yourself (via zshare)

thanks for the tip, tgd

tgif

2010-01-22T19:05:00.006-05:00

EXT. WEEKEND - DREAM SEQUENCE

xoxo,

some delayed musings on 'avatar'

2010-01-22T11:06:00.004-05:00

jeff reichert of the film blog reverse shot delivers a belated review of avatar in which he considers the film's impact on the industry and cameron's unique standing as a director. the blog is a great barometer of a movie's worthiness, delivers well-measured reviews and commentary, and covers a ridiculous number of movies...i found this point to be particularly thought-provoking:

"The problem with a movie like this is, of course, that there may be no other filmmaker working who could create anything quite like it. There’s a reluctance to make claims for James Cameron as an auteur in the sense we film critics typically use the word, probably for various reasons: their aim for universal (even bigger than mass) appeal; their often simplistic binary politics; screenplays that, to put it nicely, aren’t exactly models of linguistic cleverness; the emphasis on brawny action set pieces over brainy mise-en-scène. Yet, what other word can we use to describe a filmmaker who has written and directed nearly all of his films, opened his own coffers to ensure creative control over final works, and in his last two features captured the imagination of the moviegoing public by starting out with his own creativity as opposed to market-tested source material?"

read more here

surfer blood

2010-01-21T15:42:00.012-05:00

been putting off a blurb on these guys for a while, and now that their debut ablum's been released, and pitchfork has christened it with the coveted title of 'best new music,' i figure there's no better time...

these guys fell prey to the modern-day hype-monster after a flurry of performances at CMJ in new york last fall. it's always a huge turn off for me (and i imagine a lot of other people as well) when a band is waaay too hyped, especially when it's on the strength of only a handful of songs. that said, i caught them perform on new years and they do play some great songs - nothing earth shattering, but definitely a lot of fun and really melodic. album cover and some tunes below:

surfer blood - "anchorage"
surfer blood - "twin peaks"

and the single:
surfer blood - "swim"

a love story in an absolut world

2010-01-21T14:08:00.007-05:00

spike jonze leaves his mark on some branded content for absolut vodka - view the trailer above and look out for the full 30 minute short in march. the movie is set to premiere at sundance this weekend - check imheremovie.com for more info.

Funded by Absolut Vodka, I'm Here is a robot love story celebrating a life enriched by creativity. The movie is set in contemporary L.A., where life moves at a seemingly regular pace with the exception of a certain amount of robot residents who love among the population. A male robot librarian lives a solitary and methodical life -- devoid of creativity, joy and passion - until he meets an adventurous and free spirited female robot.

looks like familiar territory for jonze, very bizarre and offbeat, and it's nice to see absolut extend their tradition of artist collaborations into film. i was reminded of the video he did for daft punk - check it out below.

i will simply paint a picture

2010-01-20T08:38:00.002-05:00

found object
e. lake street
minneapolis, MN

james cameron packs heat

2010-01-19T15:33:00.006-05:00

quentin tarantino, kathryn bigelow, jason reitman, lee daniels, and james cameron discuss the moment they said "screw you guys" and ascended from hack to artist. stories run the gamut of insisting on more locations to pulling guns on producers.

a little saturday happiness

2010-01-16T23:31:00.002-05:00

take a moment to indulge in the fantasy world of terry richardson.

too sexy for my shirt

2010-01-15T21:50:00.018-05:00

Modesty, oh, modesty. Who doesn't want to admire a svelte women? Look at legs that go on for miles? Gaze at perfectly pronounced collar bones? Yes, there are some who should probably cover up a bit more, maybe even thrown on a pair of undergarments...Fashion designers have appropriately noted this in their 2010 RTW collections, emphasizing and focusing on the female anatomy and allowing spectators eyes to wander to parts of the skin that are usually kept covered.

Alexander Wang's collection fuses sporty with sexy; apparent in his midriff bearing and leg enhancing outfits, "as if a bevy of cool but wayward high-school girls had raided the locker room armed with a pair of scissors."

Rodarte's collection displays garments that look as though they have been elegantly torn and tarnished. Think of an alluring woman who has been wandering in the desert for some time, choosing a Rodarte outfit to endure her long journey. Peek-a-boo holes that show hints of the stomach and upper thigh.

Vivienne Westwood's wild hair and make up styles evoke Alice in Wonderland, only Alice seems to have lost part of her outfits on her way tumbling down the rabbit hole...or after a scuffle with the Queen of Hearts.

Versace's collection can be summed up with these words: sexy, short, see-through, slits, slants, superb.