totally not depressed

Me and a Magazine

2012-01-25T12:26:00.000-08:00

Gallatin, the NYU college I attended in 2007, always expounded on the benefits of experiential learning, i.e. internships. And why wouldn't they. It was mutually beneficial; it cost NYU virtually nothing, and we were assignment-abhorring degenerates that would jump on any out-of-classroom opportunity to piss take. The last semester of my sophomore year, I spent two days a week sitting hunched over in a chilly Williamsburg loft/makeshift office "building the client's social networking presence" for a music digital marketing company, which meant hours of adding random fans to obscure indie bands' Myspace, Bebo, and LiveJournal pages. Hours of clicking and human silence amongst a backdrop of competitive coworker DJ sets, hours of requesting the friendship of 15-year-old Midwesterners boasting too much eyeliner and too little ambition. This is how I became 4 more college credits closer to a nebulous, useless degree; this is how I squandered $6,250 (3%) of my tuition money.

That summer I rented a spacious bare room on Redchurch street in London and enrolled in NYU's study abroad photojournalism course. I remember picking up the 2008 photo issue of Vice, with Terry Richardson's ariel shots of curvaceous onramps and freeway intersections on the cover. I pored over that issue the entire summer, and let the images seep so deeply that if I were now to see a naked blur falling in a cage of foam boxes (McGinley) or agitated nails digging into a stiffened thigh (Tania Leshkina), I'd be transported right back to that grassy patch of Hoxton Square. I remember being so inspired and so productive. One week I was shooting a series about date rape, the next I was documenting East London's insular Vietnamese population. I remember that beautiful summer. In particular, a setting sun, a sliding silk hemline, a surreptitious gaze, some cheap cava, and the new relationship it all aided in conceiving. But that's another story, a love story for another time. That summer in London I really discovered something that I enjoyed doing and something I was good at.

Having had been so moved by that particular issue of Vice, the next semester I aimed to intern for them. I felt as if I struck gold when I was asked to come into Vice's office for an interview for a position in the digital advertising department. I remember what I wore to the interview, a rainbow paneled maxi dress that trailed behind me so that it looked as if I was floating on E. At the time, I think I thought the outfit contributed to my hiring, but today I am amazed that I wasn't automatically banished forever for looking as if I actually tried. So for two days a week, I trekked again to Williamsburg. I remember where I was placed, in the very back near the dripping water cooler, where no one congregated to talk about their weekend or last week's episode of Lost. Delegated to this abysmal cold corner, my sole task was to track competitor's advertisers, making a comprehensive list of every advert I spotted. Out of extreme boredom, sometimes I actually watched VBS's content. This is how I became acquainted with the artist/photographer Richard Kern, and his type of girl. I thought I could be one of those girls, so I wrote to him, placing emphasis on my suburban OC upbringing pandering to his penchant du jour for the girl next door, and then I began to model for him. Now, perhaps regrettably, there are questionable photos of me floating around the internet, and according to him, a large print of me in some wealthy Italian's living room. Another meaningless semester passed.

Fast forward two years later, and I was again interning in Vice's London office after graduation, sorting mail and shooting some parties, and I was also working at a bar in Dalston where all the young bartenders, unlike here in Williamsburg, weren't planning on making careers out of pulling pints. They were all under 28 and popular and fun. One guy, he worked at Dazed, and was a really surly gay who made me laugh violently for days from a single impression or witticism, but more than that, he intimidated me and made me feel reallllllly American. When I told him about my side job at Vice, he said in the most searing, sarcastic and dry tone something about how cool Vice was. I felt as if I had just looked down at my footwear and was wearing Uggs or something, you should have heard the way he said it. And so I never mentioned working at Vice again.

And so today I just wanted to share with you my history with Vice, because I feel like it was there lingering in the background during some of my most important moments of young self-discovery. (Or maybe it was a roundabout justification for just showing off some pictures of myself) Today I don't read Vice without an eye roll, but I am still involved in some ways... I'm in the latest issue! (There! We got to the point) A huge feat. I do consider it an honor, and still love seeing my face in print, especially in a magazine that contributed to my current course in life. So check out some photos, shot by Ben Ritter, below:

Best of BASEL!

2011-12-04T16:11:00.000-08:00

This man below, in his vintage Versace ensemble that he most likely inherited from some anonymous deceased gay, and his hands casually laced behind his neck is thinking one thing: "I'm in fucking Miami. It's 38 degrees in Paris (or New York or London, one of the three) and I'm now sitting poolside with miniature glass bottles adorned on my personhood. I could not be more relaxed than I am in this very moment."

This photo is deceptive, and not at all representative of how I experienced America's biggest annual art event. Miami Art Basel this year, as opposed to last year, was a 6 day affair chock-full of minor panic attacks, sleepless nights, and McDonalds cheeseburgers on the run. I was, as my mother would warn against as she regaled me with cautionary tales of my father and his premature retirement from the surgery biz, 'burning the candles at both ends'. I was working alot. I was putting together my 2nd photo exhibit in Miami during the day and shooting events by night. I slept very little, and spent an exorbitant money on cabs from my hotel in Brickell to/from South Beach. My tight schedule prevented me from doing my favorite thing in cities: seeking out dirty hole-in-the-wall ethnic cuisine. This made me cranky, being forced to subsist on sub-par panini when what I really craved was a traditionally assembled Cuban sandwich, regardless of my aversion to pickles.

Yet I had never had so much fun. In my 23 years of worldly existence, I've never experienced anything like it. But last year amongst a throng of professional partyers, artists, models, and moneyed Europeans I was just a cipher with a large-brimmed hat and no on-the-list name. This year, with End of Century friends, I arrived with a purpose: to showcase my photographs. Within a week we embarked on planning a pop-up show in Miami's design district, and we managed to pull it off. I'm very proud of us (check out below THE Jane Holzer, our lovely guest of honor, with my prints!)

And this is very hard to admit in such a public sphere, but last year I even scaled an 8 foot wall at the Delano wearing a heavy floor-length skirt, and concealed myself until I hopped onto the service elevator in hopes of sneaking into Le Baron, the ultimate destination for those in search of the most influential and youthful Basel creme de la creme. This year, instead of access by way of physical toil, I was being paid to shoot it. Insert Groucho Marx logic about club membership here. Well it's all true, its sheen evaporated entirely. How so much can change in a year. At the club, I illuminated pitch-black corners, as if turning over mossy rocks, where I discovered girls in hemmed floral dresses slipping their tiny tongues into less-than-pristine auricles of suited men, as hands hastily raced up thighs. I was more or less, in the background, documenting and taking mental notes. And it comforted me then, knowing that there are those things that will always remain a constant.

Totally Not Depressed: The Photo Exhibit

2011-11-24T11:28:00.000-08:00

New Yorkers are such self-aggrandizing, arrogant pricks, that's why they throw so many parties. Let's say you're a relatively unknown creative. You find a venue, a liquor sponsor, create an enviable guest list of fashion, art and media notables and VOILA! with the right blog buzz, you're a somebody. Now I can google you. Well, last week I was elated to finally be able to partake in the tradition, in this battle for relevancy. I celebrated my first photo show ever, entitled Totally Not Depressed, hosted by Creative Recreation (Jeff Dorsman) and best friend/gay about town, Alex Catarinella. Creative Recreation provided the perfect venue, their expansive SoHo showroom. Milk Studios printed my photos, and Kanon Vodka provided the libations for the evening. I showcased 11 prints, all of them produced within the last 3 years, most of them very recently.

I'd like the thank all my people who came out to the event, I was truly touched to see so many old and new friends come together in the same room. It just made me realize how long I've actually been living in New York, and that made me totally a little depressed.

Check out some more photos from the event on Paper and BFAnyc

Bronze Baby

2011-11-24T10:20:00.000-08:00

I was recently shot for a Refinery29 Beauty piece about 4 makeup essentials. I usually shoot for them, so I was pleasantly surprised when they asked me to model for this story. Sephora pro lead artist, Gilbert Soliz, who helped my face undergo a plethora of transformations (7 to be exact), got me hooked on all four products -- especially NARS powder bronzer in Laguna (OC reference, how apt). How did I ever function without bronzer? Can't believe I've been walking around like a pale, un-sculpted dork for 23 years of my life. Shanita Sims was the lovely photographer.

I'm a Waitress

2011-11-20T20:36:00.003-08:00

To some girls of a certain degree of attractiveness living in New York, bussing glassware from tables and balancing hot plates of food has always proven a viable money maker. When I first moved to New York, there was nothing more glamorous than the service industry; I aspired to be a bottle waitress at Gramercy Park Hotel's suuuuuper exclusive Rose Bar, where these by-day models in their designer bandage dress uniforms were rumored to make thousands in just one evening alone. Needless to say, I never made it past the first round of interviews there, but since then, I have had my fair share of service industry jobs, from pulling espresso shots at Cakeshop to pouring Jagermeister shots at The Haggerston to delivering plates of nachos at The Commodore.

I love being a waitress in New York, even if my shifts become more infrequent because of my blossoming photography career. Especially at a workplace like The Commodore, a totally chillax bar/restaurant, the complete antithesis of say, The Rose Bar or Olive Garden. I've become best friends with the kitchen Latinos, who've improved my Mexican twenty-fold and in the span of a year, I think I've lost weight from all the gruesome physical labor despite the fried-food friendly menu. I go home with cash every night (ah the frustrating financial downfalls of a freelancer) which I keep neatly stacked and organized by denominations under my mattress. I love the customers and coworkers you start out hating but come to love, the stalkers who leave you scribbled messages on receipts.

Anyway, my experience in the restaurant industry inspired me to document waitresses for Refinery29. My love of all things food/nightlife-related urged me to find girls from the "hippest" restaurants in NY that I would typically frequent. Refinery29 went for the pitch, and I contacted various restaurants who were all very enthusiastic about the project. Some restaurants shot included Indochine, The Standard Grill, Red Rooster, La Esquina, Miss Lilys, An Choi, Vinegar Hill House (my new favorite restauant). I think I got some amazing shots, CHECK OUT THE STORY ON REFINERY29!

Here are some of favorite selects from the series:

Dress Up in You

2011-10-03T09:27:00.000-07:00

When I was in high school, I was obsessed with modeling. I didn't crave the fame or the boys or the travel (ok maybe the boys); I loved clothes, costume and I loved capturing it all on my shitty digicam. My friends and I would make an afternoon out of trolling through bins of dusty prom dresses and tulle skirts at Savers in La Habra. A far drive when you had $12 in your bank account and pre-SAT courses at 8 am the next day. We made weekends out of photo shoots (which were to be later posted on Myspace) with our newest thrift store finds. We laid out costume changes on our beds and spilled the contents of our makeup bags on the floor to face our mirrored walls, evidenced by the Urban Decay powders that still stain the carpet threads there, a shimmery midnight black.

When I moved to New York, in my first year I was scouted at Royal Oak as the "real person" model, amongst a cast of all "real models", for a Daryl K runway show. I was so nervous and intimidated, I showed up 15 minutes before call time wearing sky-high platforms, and fully made-up as Fashion Week-weary models arrived in sneakers and sweat pants. Five years later and I've given up, I've been defeated. I had a brief stint at a modeling agency but I ultimately failed because I was too fat and undedicated to the concept of diet and exercise. But I still do things occasionally, for friends, things that get me excited the way I was giddy coming home from Savers with 10 lb bags full of lacy, cheap, neon, synthetic garments.

My new friends Kalen and Astrid, the designers behind UPSTATE, approached me and friend Holland Brown about spending the weekend in a remote upstate home in the Catskills, swinging from ropes and playing dress up. We modeled for their gothic and tribal inspired Spring 2012 lookbook. I think these are some of my favorite photos of me. Looking at them now makes me reminisce about both the great carefree (= cell-phone free) summer weekend I spent with the entire cast of talented ppl, but also the thrill of dressing up as kids, of feeling unique and weird, but still quite pretty.

NYFW S/S 2012

2011-09-19T10:26:00.000-07:00

When I texted Alex this morning "I h8 my life" he told me I was suffering from the post-NYFW blues. I don't know if the swell of emotion is attributable to a week of bingeing on overly-saccharine Belvedere cocktails, or from the knowledge that no foreseeable week will be as equally fulfilling, professionally or socially. How do you compete with a week of utter amazingness, of partygoers spilling Cliquot on your shoes, an afternoon enjoying a coffee across from Carine Roitfeld at The Plaza, pushing a frail Bill Cunningham out of the way for a photo opp? Where do you go from there? Back to your waitressing job that pays the bills, that's where.

It's like we're living with this underlying FOMO, a sort of anxiety and yearning until FW arrives and you turn up (sans invite, with dubious press credentials) to a party, say, the V Mag Black & White Ball, and you enter and are struck with the knowledge that you're in the right place, with no desire to be anywhere else. For once you're sated, because as superficial as it sounds, that is the byproduct of the magical and rare concoction of youth, beauty, celebrity and wealth. I think Jennifer Egan was most accurate in her description of the congregation of the NY glitterati: "This place was a referent for every crummy disco in the world, every cinderblock room with colored lights and mirrored ball missing half its chips, every girl with a cheap, shimmery blouse, pulled over her scrawny arms, nodding her chin to the synthetic backbeat; Cairo, Mombassa, Beirut -- all were concentric ripples of a disturbance generated here, a hunger whose signal had reached virtually every cranny of the earth." Sigh. How does one find a raison d'être post-NYFW?

See some of my NYFW S/S 2012 coverage:

Opening Ceremony Fashion's Night Out for BFA

Some more OC FNO for Style.com

Prabal Gurung Afterparty for Paper Magazine

Photo of the Day: Betsey Johnson and Nicki Minaj for Refinery29

Purple Magazine Afterparty Selects for Refinery29

Finn Jewelry Presentation for BFA

Lovecat Magazine Afterparty for Paper Magazine

Black & White Ball/V Mag Party for Paper Magazine

Or just check out some selects here:

Le Périgord et Paris

2011-07-17T19:18:00.000-07:00

I was banned from the UK in November, and I was struggling at the time to divorce that aspect from my being. I was suddenly presented with this existential predicament -- who was I outside of my Anglophilia, my obsessive desire to become one of them?

But it went like this. As if recovering was as simple as spinning a globe and halting it forcefully with my forefinger right there, on what would become my new object of my affection: France. Or maybe more like this: like an infantile spurned lover, who spots her indifferent ex-lover at a bar, and while keeping his gaze, strokes a proximate man's hand in her lap.

Whatever my motivation was, I decided I wanted to shed my miserable British ways, and become one of those American girls who adore French culture. These girls, with their Anna Karina crisp penciled eyes, who would embrace the idea of being fed pistcache macaroons under a manicured hedge by a scraggy, unshaven French man. While this never enticed me, I was determined it soon would. So I began attending French language classes at Alliance Française and investing more time in Varda, Truffaut, Chabrol, Rohmer. Then months later, as a kind of litmus test to indicate my progress, booked a ticket to Paris. How much I laughed and partied and savored France would determine how much I didn't miss the UK anymore.

I mapped out my trip a week prior to leaving on 4th of July. I knew 2 weeks in Paris would be unbearable, both on my bank account and already NYC-weary mental state. Traveling alone, I wanted to experience the true backwards and rural countryside à la my Southern roadtrip, and so I wanted to avoid the throngs of Americans making their way south to Provence. A year ago, I was in the Cote d'Azur with my mom and some uncouth friends who screamed out for ketchup at restaurants nary a s'il vous plaît or merci, and I think I was too scarred to return.

Hours of research and google translate led me to some obscure and confusing corners of both the web and the country itself, and I soon stumbled upon a room for $12 a night in a charming village home that dated back to the 15th century. A google image search of the area, Périgord Vert in the Dordogne region, was so unfathomably beautiful -- rivers, weeping willows, rolling green hills, sunflower fields -- that I booked right away, without too much knowledge except that I would be there for four days, and the owner of the house would pick me up from the train station. I didn't know who this man was, or ask the essential questions like Why only $12 a night,Where are we going exactly, Will there be anyone else besides us?. I didn't want to press my luck; I was simply content knowing he would drive me far to the unfamiliar and the remote, away from any trace of the hedonism and fast-pacedness that is Brooklyn living, and so I took that risk that I might be murdered. At least then my body would decay amongst the fallen walnuts and camouflaged country mice, and that sounded kind of nice, too.

At the train station in Angoulême, when I met Chris, the mystery host of my countryside expedition, I was both elated and saddened by one major thing: He was British. Around this Hackney resident, how was I supposed let go -- to banish those nostalgic East London memories or anxieties about my hampered future in Hampstead Heath? But of course, it was really a boon. I would be able to communicate and joke around with someone, in an area where people were sparse already, instead of gesticulating wildly and stumbling around for correct verb conjugations (I hadn't even come across the imperfect tense yet). Chris became the English uncle surrogate I've always dreamed of having, dropping odd bits of historical information here and there, pointing out bird species that congregated around his yard, mapping out my bike routes to near villages. What could have turned out very To Catch A Predator didn't, it was a complete reinforcement of why I take risks.

How rare it is to recognize true happiness in the present, but this is how it happened. I was sinking in a lawn chair so that all I could physically reach, and all I needed to reach, was my glass of wine and the saccharine cherry tomatoes hanging off a neighboring bush. It was the late afternoon, and I'd just returned from the Friday market in a nearby village, where I purchased 4 euro sandals that combined criss-crossing neon pink, green and yellow straps. From where I was laying, I could see the fields of forest and vast yellow blocks of blossomed sunflowers, their faces uniformly posed away from me. But I wasn't looking, I was immersed in Little Bee, a depressing novel about a Nigerian girl stuck in a UK detention center, as I was, albeit a night! (Why put myself through it? Because I'm a masochist, one of those people who like to pick their own scabs) Anyway, the only pressing thing on my agenda for that day was one of those luxurious naps you take in a cool dark space after being pummeled by the sun, then a bike ride that would lead me to an abandoned mossy mill near the Dronne river.

The most ironic thing was that most of the people Chris introduced me to were English. We were in Léguillac-de-Cercles, a village so uninhabited, it only consisted of a 12th century church and one sole business: not a boulangerie or a grocer, but a village pub (not surprising, considering the constituency). I later met Chris' friend Andrew, who seemed to begin every story with "I was young and broke..", ending in joint laughter. Ten years ago, he had used his inheritance money to purchase a large old French farmhouse that sat on a isolated hill, with neolithic caves in the backyard which his family used for storage. Andrew told me his neighbor, an old French farmer, once ran him over with his tractor when Andrew approached him to discuss possibly purchasing the man's land, which seemed to aptly epitomize the strained relationship between the locals and the encroaching English. The house was up for sale. It so perfectly matched the country house of my childhood dreams, I would have considered finishing off my parents and using my inheritance money to buy it from him. Just kidding... My parents don't plan on leaving me anything.

When I returned to Paris, I met Marlon, one of my best friends in London, my fellow enfant terrible of the culinary scene (Afterschool Special). When I was in the detention center at Gatwick, I used my $1 phone credit to call him. That morning in Paris, he arrived at my door having just endured an 8 hours bus ride from London, and was just as I had left him a year ago: sporting sweat pants, half-singing "Wuuu Hoo!". He had me in stitches with his impersonation of the Chinese passenger who kept him awake with his frenetic knee-knocking spasms.

Marlon knows me. This is why, without my prompting, he arrived with what I consider to be the most significant British contribution to humankind, Sticky Toffee Pudding, in two forms: canned and Tesco's fresh. We sat in bed gossiping for hours about relationships, friends and jobs. So much has happened in the year since our graduation. At our tiny studio flat near Canal St Martin, on Rue Bichat, we could barely close the bathroom door without jamming our knees, but I was just so happy to be in Paris with my good old friend. My reliable, clean-freak German.

Paris is a dirty city. Sitting down at a Chez Prune one afternoon, a homeless Asian man with a gold tooth approached us; Marlon mistook him as the waiter, looked at me as if to ask if I understood what he was saying (is he speaking Vietnamese? French?). The man grunted indecipherably and shuffled away, maintaining eye contact with me, and when he stopped across the canal, he beagn to masturbate, then pee. The scary thing was that, judging from the non-reactions of others, this seemed par for the course. There is dog shit on your doorstep and sleeping bags stored in the corners of alleyways. People are cheeky; it is normal for complete strangers to ask anyone from pre-teens to destitute hookers to Japanese tourists for cigarettes.

Despite all this, I was beginning to become infatuated by the lifestyle and I adored all the people we met. It was a city full of serendipitous meetings. An aged, stylish couple we'd met in Le Marais who spent their time between their Oakland home and their St-Germain-des-Prés apartment made us realize that we might want that someday, too. I ran into them 2 times again in 3 days, and took it as a sign. There was another Oakland woman, Nina, reading Just Kids at a canal-side wine bar La Patache; it was the same book I had begun a week earlier. Nina was thrilled to come across other Americans after a month of solely speaking in (immaculate) French, and so she divulged to us her story as we listened with perhaps too much fervor. She was attending culinary school on a whim, well, because of a break-up back home. She was working on a documentary about Susan Sontag, and she loved Marlon's name so much she repeated it softly to herself over and over. She smoked without filters, and she smoked all the time. If I lived in Paris, I would make her be my best friend.

I didn't want my 5 café crème, 1 boteille du vin quotidien regimen to come to and end, but after a week, it was time. I thought of Paris as one of those 3D sterogram images I always struggled deciphering as a kid; now I was getting that 2nd image everyone else could. I was picking up conversation pieces in French, and reveling in my linguistic achievements. Every morning, I looked forward to spooning coffee grounds into the Moka and popping out to the boulangerie for a baguette. I presented myself with a challenge before, to forget about the UK, and it was happening here. But en route to the airport, as I pushed my luggage full of sausscion and Kinder buenos through Gare du Nord, I looked up at the flickering train schedule board. I didn't expect it, but when I saw listed a departure for London St. Pancreas, it was as if everything I left behind there hurt so much my eyes began to well up. It was the city that broke my heart, and a city, from where I was standing at that point, only 2 hours away by train, a bit too close for comfort.

Moonshiners

2011-06-20T13:39:00.000-07:00

To me, the American South had always been my Boo Radley, a source of adolescent superstition and romanticization. When I was a senior in high school, my English teacher, apropos of nothing, handed me his jaundiced copy of William Styron's Sophie's Choice. He said if I read it, I was exempt from my final exam. This was my last month of highschool and all I wanted to be thinking about was prom dresses, not the Holocaust. However, inadvertently, the novel ingrained in me a deep fascination with the American South. The book's lesser appreciated storyline, an allegorical parallel to Sophie's tale of Aushwitz, is about Stingo, a sensitive, sexually-frustrated Southern writer living in Brooklyn grappling with the South's slave-holding past. When I closed my eyes, instead of tearful Senior beach bonfire goodbyes, Stingo's heartbroken twang lingered in my mind.

About a year later, I was introduced to cult documentary, Ross McElwee's Sherman's March, an exploration of the South and its history, as well as an accidental rumination on McElwee's personal relationships with the various women in his life. What he best captured was the spirit of the South, by examining particular Southern characters -- his sister, aunts and mother, his exs', his flings'. This is what I wanted to do, meet and document people the way he did. So finally, years later, I decided to carve a week out of my hectic crazy NY party schedule to drive through North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

As girlfriend Claudia and I drove around mostly bewildered (no maps, just two iPhones, a defunct GPS, an iPad and our innate female sense of orientation [at one point we accidentally drove to TN]), we visited the real-life Maycomb, getting a true sense of the people that inhabited these tired towns. One initially-wary woman, Elizabeth, was ninety-one, nearly deaf and blind. She recounted how she'd always lived in this small town of Social Circle, GA, never married, a hint of resignation in her voice. She had always worked in her dad's General Store since the day it opened, where we first found her, in the cool darkness (electricity is superfluous overhead expense) amongst the rubble of stuff that would never ever sell. I choked up, seeing her shaky, neatly handwritten price tags: a tube of Colgate only 99 cents, as if the last two decades simply hadn't occurred. Then there was the rural poverty, friendly faces waving to us in a dusty trailer park as we awkwardly skidded to U-turn back to the main road, the toothless, incomprehensible man in overalls, a chubby rosy-cheeked girl who's diet probably consisted of only frozen tater tots, grinning in her derelict frontyard.

In Juliette, GA, we booked a night at Jarrell Family Farm, located on a historical plantation site. The owner's grandfather had built the house with his very own hands, and the owner's wife regaled us with stories of Sherman's men hanging the slaves by their thumbs. She assured us they didn't die. This impressed us as much as the sight of two twenty-something girls wearing sheer, futuristic tunic-potato sacs must've impressed them. We elicited alot of these reactions throughout our travels.

In Savannah, the most beautiful city I've seen, we spent less than 24 hours. We stayed at the charming Eliza Thompson House in the historical district, lined with spanish moss and spotted with green squares. For breakfast we went for seafood at what looked like a gas station, Charlie Teeple Seafood Product. Auspicious enough! We were greeted by yet another janky-toothed gentleman with a "Grab Some Buds" shirt and an unrelenting interest in Claudia. He tried to woo her by ripping apart a live crab to display it's innards, which only succeeded in seriously chipping away at her appetite and terrifying me. We dove right in to the low-country boil, complete with blue crab, shrimp, potatoes, andouille sausage, corn and all doused in melted butter. All this in 95 deg weather.

Oscillating between Son Volt and Nicki Minaj, we drove to Charleston from there, where I encountered my favorite character ever, Ms. Lou, the eccentric, hoarding owner of Sunny Meadows Bed and Breakfast. She kind of spoke like a precocious twelve-year-old with a sixty-five year old woman's body. In her backyard, she giddily introduced us to her twenty-year-old ostriches, her donkeys and chickens (which she rented out as chicks for 2 weeks to local children for Easter) and to the innkeeper/coastal engineer who we endearingly named Boat, because 1) we forgot his real name (Patrick) and 2) he boasted an assortment of boats. Boat even kindly took us out on his motor boat the next day amongst the reeds, where I suffered major shoulder burns. Ms. Lou's house (she owns another, the haunted Rice Hope Plantation) was a white columned mansion that was quite impressively and meticulously filled with just stuff, every nook and cranny. And the deeper you searched, the more horrific the hoard, like ants to an abandoned lollipop in the summertime. Despite how Grey Gardens everything was, I will definitely be coming back to visit Ms. Lou in Charleston, because maybe I see a little bit of myself in her. C-r-a-z-y.

So those are really the key events that really made my trip. And here are some photos to fill in the blanks. Also, stay tuned for Claudia's culinary play-by-play...

All About Holland

2011-05-23T09:27:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday. LUSH!

La Chamade

2011-05-15T14:53:00.000-07:00

Ever since my recent UK ban, which was a real sting, a feeling akin to losing all your belongings in a fire, I am becoming more steadfast in my French education. I am vociferously consuming the culture and language (but please, don't test me just yet). Today I stumbled upon a really good movie starring Catherine Deneuve. Of all the Deneuve ones I've seen, Alain Cavalier's La Chamade is my favorite of the bunch. For so many reasons. Simple in plot, it's a movie we've all seen before -- one beautiful woman and two very opposite lovers. Deneuve convincingly plays the role of regal wife to French aristocrat. It's practically the same role she plays in Belle de Jour, as a bored housewife, except instead of alleviating her ennui through performance as a prostitute with a penchant for passivity, she does so by cavorting with a super hottie French journalist, who, despite his strong moral scruples, struggles to provide for her idea of freedom. He tries to change her, wants her to find work, when all she wants to do is live her stay-cation lifestyle in Paris, quoting Faulkner in cafés, playing Scrabble on the beach in Saint Tropez, attending Classical concerts wearing fuchsia...

Anyway, besides the super hackneyed plot-line I totally fell for, I thought the cinematography felt really modern. I love all the tight shots that linger on Deneuve; they seep sensuality. And the costumes! Look!

Cinco de Mayo

2011-05-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

Mexico Showroom + The China Chalet (Opening Ceremony/4AD) + Tequila - Claudie's Wallet = A Very Wong Kar-Wai night

Wanderlust

2011-05-03T09:42:00.001-07:00

Everyone should start following this new Williamsburg Street Style Blog Wanderlust. I totally endorse this only because Ms. Jane managed to get a flattering photo of me outside of Five Leaves. Hey! That's technically Greenpoint.

Can I tell you a secret? You might think less of me.

Inspired by Angela Chase's "World Happiness" dance outfit in "Life of Brian" and also featured in "The Zit"

One Year Anniversary

2011-05-03T08:12:00.000-07:00

On the rare occassion that you pose yourself this question: "Am I happy?", how do you gauge? Well, one year ago, I was at the peak of happiness, and for me, that is my frame of reference. I was in my favorite city, and had endured a tortuous winter, and it was now getting warm and the parks were lush and inviting, and I was being "courted" by a really normal handsome man. I'm quite happy now, about 65% compared to last year. Missing London terribly. So it meant alot to me when a few British friends Pete&Parusha, Ben&Zinnia came to New Yor this past week and I was momentarily transported back to exactly one year ago, to that inimitable surging stretch of bliss. It was really nice to hear about the current state of Come Dine With Me and the important people who didn't give a flying fuck about the Royal Wedding, really. Plus, to really drive the whole 1 year anniversary thing home, it was Pete & Parusha's 5 year "anniversary" of spotting each other in London, while she, hungover, was shamefully snacking on sweet corn toast! Upon seeing him in her house, she surreptitiously chucked it in the garbage. But he saw. Stories like that thrill me. I am a woman, aren't I?

On the last weekend, I'm glad that we got to share a quintessentially "Williamsburg" experience, as we crawled through the labyrinth that was a loft rooftop party that my roomate Ayaka's boyfriend Ben was throwing. Pretty epic! Here are some snaps.

The requisite 'house party' photo, I am not above clichés

"As Long as I'm Beautiful, I'm Alive"

2011-04-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

This is a post dedicated to women. Also a demonstration of just how sick and cruel this city is, based on the fact that it can inhabit so many youthful and beautiful babes who're able to match their looks with their intellect, ambition and creativity. I mean, imagine what that does to a girl's ego, esp one who fancied herself relatively cool and smart... Anyway, now I'm just constantly mired in my own inadequacy, surrounded by these freaks of nature, but now because some of these freaks are my friends, I can at least be happy enough basking in their beauty.

Take for example, Chantal and Lara, two friends who, despite all the risks, have opened up their own LES concept-store, End of Century. And manage to throw store parties ALL the time. Or my friend Claudie, who's recently created a whole line of home-brewed bitters and gins (with jewelry in the works). And Holland, the enfant terrible of us all. The unflinching moralist and aesthete who has a predilection for expounding upon things, especially color theory. The one who could convince anyone that anything is cool. Neon prison jumpsuits. And my friend Shaghayegh in London, who is not photographed here, but I'm mentioning her bc I'm wearing the skin-tight nude dress she designed and made for me here, which if I'm wearing, means I want to impress you (unless my stomach rolls are acting unruly, then it's meant as a gesture of self-deprecation and humilation). Anyway, unrelated to my cellulite issues, she's going to be famous someday.

It all kind of climaxed last night, when a friend Cleo invited me to an intimate dinner hosted by Alice + Olivia at The Lion in West Village. The party was for a group of interesting and creative girls in NY, and so I was just a bit thrown off as to why I was invited, but I went because, like I explained, the basking aspect. Very posh, the secret upstairs room (the entrance was an invisible door in the wall) and very well-attended by, as the invite suggested, a group of beautiful creative women. Loved the cupcakes, DJ duo Mia and Caitlin's nightmarish account of their 3-hour set for manufacturers in Shanghai last week, meeting a girl from Stylecaster who had already googled my name before the party, and me drunkenly mentioning my career aspirations to Billy Farrell (i.e. begging for a job). It was a re-affirming evening.

And some photos by Style Caster blogger, Susan Nurit. Finally, some photos featuring ME. Thanks, girl!

Oh, and these aren't from last night, but in the spirit of celebrating beautiful bitches, here're some snaps from the past few weeks.

EOC - Landon Metz opening

2011-04-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

The most important faces of the night!

A Second Home

2011-03-31T16:58:00.000-07:00

I may not be much of a coffee connoisseur, but I do spend quite alot of my time at coffee shops. It's where everything happens (and nothing at all), where I socialize, caffeinate, procrastinate, work. No matter what city I'm in, whether it be London, Berlin or SF, my favorite thing to do is seek out the perfect place to have a coffee and read the paper. I set out to do a project for Refinery29 that highlighted my personal favorites places to do that in NY. I also wanted to capture the places that've garnered cult status in the third wave coffee movement, and the places that've so deeply ingrained itself in the daily rituals of so many people. So yes, this series as advertised by Refinery29 is a focus on the "coffee shop cuties", kind of reminiscent of my last Refinery29 photo essay about HOT SUBWAY RIDERS. But don't let my superficiality put you off, that's what they have to title it in order to get clicks. This essay was a great opportunity for me to document some really talented baristas as well as some really pioneering New York establishments that I also happen to like to call my second homes.

See my Refinery29 Story: "NYC Best Coffee Shops"

Claudie confusing coffee for Herbal Essence

The seminal Ninth Street Espresso on Tompkins Sq. Park and an artsy silouhette

Saturday Surf NYC in SoHo

Our local haunt, Miller's Tavern, a block from our house. (With neighbor Alex)

Everyone at Abraço obviously oblivious to my camera

Five Leaves in Greenpoint. A solidly attractive staff.

Holland and her color-blocking at Café Grumpy in her hood, G-point

Kyle from Variety Café silently reprimanding the croissants

Blue Bottle

Gimme! Coffee

More of the Sat/Surf NYC boys

Jessica, the San Franciscan, at Abraço

Chris at Blue Bottle

Bryce, an old Miller's coworker at The Smile

A lovely couple that met at Jack's (a coffee shop across from Joe's) in the West Village

How to Stretch a Joke

2011-03-18T19:17:00.001-07:00

The seed: an unassuming, suspiciously imitation, Roxy jacket abandoned in a childhood closet. My father had brought it back from Vietnam as a gift for me when I was 17, assuming that my fashion tastes had somehow ossified at the age of 12. I never wore it until this Feb, when I had returned to CA for a short respite, and saw it sadly crumpled in a box. I decided to look past its ugliness and truly appreciate it for what it was: an indispensable, practical winter piece to be worn solely in the confines of my own home. I'd return to New York just in time for Fashion Week and below-freezing temperatures. Traipsing around from fashion show to show amidst the super-styled crowd, I then decided to wear the most subversive thing in my apparel arsenal, and conveniently the warmest, my old Roxy jacket. This is how it made it's public debut. At this time, I was developing a friendship with Holland, a California native who's penchant for its culture and the ocean immediately inspired her to run with the Roxy idea -- entitling friends various Roxy brand ambassador positions. Holland was motivated by true sincerity to spread the Roxy dream, and me, by a want to legitimize my jacket, yet we banded together.

We crashed a Quicksilver store party this past week, under false press credentials (Claudia: "I'm here for.. um.. Totally Not Depressed"). We previewed the new Quicksilver Girl line, we sipped rosé on polka-dot napkins, purchased matching pink neo(n)prene accessories. We grilled the PR girls about their brand philosophy: Who is the Roxy girl? And what is her place in the modern metropolis setting? We genuinely had the best time of our lives. The BF, upon seeing the streams of photos from our Roxy affair on FB the next day: "You girls really know how to stretch a joke". Matt. Oh Matt... There's nothing funny about nostalgia, fashion and friends. And there is absolutely nothing funny about free pinkberry. K, Brah??

low-res BB photos courtesy of Holland Brown

Lara, when I said your ID photo looked lesbo-y, I was drunk. I'm sorry.

Oh beautiful Claudie.

Entering New Territory

2011-03-18T17:36:00.000-07:00

I'm really happy how things are picking up photo-wise. I'm getting to do the documentary long-term projects that really interest me... Dreams?.... Realizing?.... Then my friend Tay approached me about shooting his model friend's look book; honestly, I didn't feel as if I was right for the job. I'm a laissez-faire photographer, I like my subjects to self-direct, and I like to inconspicuously shoot behind columns and trash cans, that's why I love documentary. Shooting a model places all sorts of pressures on me -- to create flattering and glossy photos (I'd rather capture people at their worst! Friends, vouch for me), to direct and make meaningful gestures and comments, to wax on positive reinforcements. But thankfully, model/gym-rat (obviously, look at them abs)/Ralph Lauren associate Dylan was a pleasure to work with. Such an ease, he's made me change my mind. Despite a botched plan to hire a car to shoot at various locations, the photos still turned out great with Brooklyn as the backdrop. It was also a pleasure to collaborate w/ stylist Tay Trong and hair-dude Hiroya (pictured miming a pipe). Hiroya convinced me I should Afro-tize my hair, and I'm seriously considering it. Or at least crimping it out, so that I can learn the true meaning of sweat.

The EV gets another chance

2011-03-13T20:53:00.000-07:00

I've been shooting a new project for the last 3 days (I'll share once it's completed next week), which has forced me out of my Williamsburg shell, deep into the Alphabets. I forgot how much I love the East Village -- even the gutter punks and their tattooed dogs, the ambiguously homeless men throwing trash cans against fences in Tompkins Square Park. The chinese women waiting in line for cheeseburgers. Living on St. Mark's Place, I thought I was scarred for life, but I think I'll give the EV another chance.

Where We Are

2011-03-07T12:50:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, friends Lara and Chantal had an opening reception for artist Seldon Yuan at their LES boutique/gallery space End of Century. It was a big night for these girls, and everything went splendidly, congrats! After some gallery hopping and fruitless taxi hailing, we all jumped into a limo, indulging in high school Prom nostalgia, toward Max Fish..

Winter and Spring

2011-03-04T14:34:00.000-08:00

My next project for Refinery29 is in the works. Spring/Color/Rebirth, William Eggleston, French Vogue and Advanced Style were my main inspirations. Ah, the juxtaposition! I might need to buy a ticket down to Florida. I'll let you guess what I'll be shooting next.

Clothes shouldn't be funny

2011-03-04T13:53:00.000-08:00

Everyone knows I have a strong disdain for graphic-wear. And don't get me started on irony & apparel. Clothes shouldn't be funny. (Although if you've ever seen my cone jacket by Australian label TV, you'd think I thought otherwise) Knowing this, I was experiencing some major cognitive dissonance when I spotted this doughnut sweatshirt by Asish at Topshop. I had to have it, but it stood against my very core aesthetic and beliefs. I just don't think fashion should have that function. And plus, look at all that color! But yea, look at those colors, so many sprinkles. That golden fried rim, just a slight suggestion of warm doughy goodness.. What's a fashionista foodie to do? In the end, my stomach won and I bought the damn sweatshirt. So here's how I compromised: clothes shouldn't be funny unless they're yummy.

Just the Surface

2011-02-21T12:53:00.000-08:00

And just the chest and chin is all you're gonna get from me in the latest issue of SURFACE MAGAZINE. Here I am, modeling for stylist/designer friend Bruno Grizzo (the first time I modeled for him, I wore a bondage mask) for a simple fashion editorial shoot featuring a host of Indian jewelry designers. Lights! Camera! Color!!!!

My Controversial CT

2011-02-18T13:58:00.000-08:00

Check it out!

Yesterday friends Refinery29 posted a photo of me in really tight high-waisted leather shorts which might or might not've given the impression that I have a vagina. I thought it was up to me to address this matter: yes I have a vagina! And thank god for my self-deprecating tendencies and history of humiliating events (here and here and here) which have immunized me against this particular embarrassment or else I'd have changed my name to Sofie and moved to the Midwest by now. I'm also relieved they chose the photo of me with my coat on, or else you'd spot the underarm stains as well...

Can I get a woo-hoo? Fashion week is over and I can go back to wearing my Kmart Joe Boxer XL sweatpants outside, guaranteed CT-free.

BTW, here's me in the SAME shorts sans crotch grab, ok? In fact they look quite loose!

NYFW 2.15 - After Hours, the movie

2011-02-16T13:16:00.000-08:00

NYFW 2.15 - Jeremy Scott

2011-02-16T13:06:00.000-08:00

NYFW 2.13 - Cushnie et Ochs, Katie Gallagher

2011-02-14T08:46:00.000-08:00

I wanted to stop posting Fashion Week photos because it was beginning to feel as if I worked for some stock photography agency. And plus, the shows I've seen thus far have been somewhat dull (the attendees, that's a different story). Well I knew that Cushnie et Ochs would regain my faith, and sure enough they did. Sneaking Claudia backstage with me, we ogled over the reconstructed Aldo's, size 39 (how convenient... if a pair were to just slip into my bag). Then there were the goat hair garters, the caviar nails, the purple flares!

Just 4 floors up and 1 hour later was Katie Gallagher's presentation which was weird and stunning. Her collection, such a natural extension of her own completely unnatural appearance. A party next door hosted by a curious sponsor, farm-to-table Bushwick restaurant Roberta's was serving trays of PBRs and charcuterie meats and raw radishes on cutting boards. But we weren't sated, drunk, but not sated, so we ended up cabbing it to La Esquina for tacos before a quick last margarita at Kenmare for the VS Magazine party. Home by 12:30 am, one of the most fun and more responsible evenings this week.

NYFW 2.12 - Prabal Gurung After-Party @ Mondrian Soho + Dossier @ The Jane

2011-02-13T12:51:00.000-08:00

Read about it at Paper.

NYFW 2.12 - Charlotte Ronson and her Celebrity Coterie

2011-02-12T18:21:00.000-08:00

NYFW 2.12 - The AM

2011-02-12T12:41:00.000-08:00

I have to caption this or you'd think I'd just taken a photo of a small man and a "random" woman. It's Mr. Sartorialist and GF! Street-style photogs looking disappointingly uninspired.

Me for Style.it by Mely

NYFW 2.11 - "Are you a model or a photographer?"

2011-02-12T12:17:00.000-08:00

California Winters

2011-02-08T12:37:00.000-08:00

People in California are obsessed with weather, or rather, with comparing other people's weather to their lack thereof (and other generalizations). The last eleven days in LA and SF consisted of conversations that went like this: "So, pretty bad out in NY huh? It's been pretty cold here too," falsely modest/smug smile, "yeah, some nights dropping to the low 60s." And it wasn't enough that I heard it from every Californian I met, but from New Yorkers themselves who'd gotten the same idea to escape to LA + SF. Nevertheless, It was a much needed break, and about time I came home for Tet (Lunar New Year) to collect my little red moneyed envelopes and wish my aging grandma another year of health and wealth. I stayed with my bestie Fez in West Hollywood, and in Oakland with my relatives. Here're my photos from the trip.

When Fez said we'd be going out in WeHo, this is exactly what I envisioned.

Flicking a cigarette outside of Gold Coast bar, Fez contemplates how the night has completely gone awry.

Amidst the shady oaks of Descanso Gardens, she sports her new Commes des Garçon dress (Fairfax thrift store score)

Lunch at Wolfgang Puck's Spago, "This place isn’t stuck in the ’80s; it invented the ’80s."

Can-tahs, all nasally, that's how you have to say it

Fez, incapable of Auto-focusing on my camera

Mulholland Drive mood. Somewhere there lurks the dumpster monster.

A shrine dedicated to dead relatives becoming increasingly populated by portraits of them

Backstage with Miss Saigon

Capturing the Buis'

A strenuous saunter in Briones National Park. A hike, is what I think it's called.

The hardest decisions SF'ers face every morning: sandals or tennis sneaks? Bootleg or distressed wide-leg?

SF - SOO laptop friendly! Even Non-Macs permitted

Look! There are so, so many white people in Dolores Park, who can, truth be told, all benefit from a little time in the sun

My friend Chris has anonymous children framed around his house -- sweet or creepy?

My aunt and her hiking stick.

My scandalous mom, attempting to steal the show with her LOW-CUT Ao Dai (and my uncle, ruining the shot)

A picture I drew of my grandpa after he died to cheer up my grandma. She loved it.

French tapas at A.O.C. in LA, highly recommended

Chris, my highschool Pizza boss, my mentor.

Knee-Highs and "Fabulous" Graphic Tee, Postal Service uniform requisite

You work at Tartine?-- Hello! my name is Angela and I am free on Saturday. YOU BRING THE BREAD PUDDING!

Tartine brioche bread pudding, simple yet unreplicable, unforgettable.

SF Boutique pick: Bell Jar

The Sunset Blvd location, if you were curious

The French woman turns to me, "How doezit fit?"

My diabetic grandma

Another Advance in Anglophilia

2011-01-23T12:06:00.000-08:00

So as much as I want to be convinced I've moved on, I'LL ADMIT IT, I'm still in love with England. I thought I was over it, you know, I'm just living it up in NY and learning French!, but when my birthday crept up this year, so did a vague sense of disorientation and loss. Like a salmon being called upstream, or a woman approaching her thirties, something like suppressed instinct was calling out to England. Probably bc prior to this year, I've spent the last 3 consecutive birthdays (Jan 15) in London as it coincided with the end of winter break. 20....21.....22.... Each new birthday brought on a newfound appreciation for where I was spending it. But this year, because of thingy, I was resigned to spend it at home in New York. So I decided to bring England to me!

One thing I never tried in the UK was a proper traditional Sunday Roast, which is basically our idea of Christmas dinner, but to be indulged in on a weekly basis. More than 50% of English people consider the "roast dinner" their favorite meal, just before "fish and chips". It consists of some sort of roasted meat, yorkshire pudding (a bread-y gravy receptacle), some roasted potatoes and vegetables and gravy to drown it all. Every Sunday, we always made tenuous plans -- at The Dove, at The Royal Oak, but because we got drunk too early, or were too skint, these plans never materialized. My last Sunday in the UK, Matt and I hired a car and drove speedily for 3 hours to try and catch an acclaimed Sunday Roast at this pub in New Forest, but we'd just missed it by minutes. We were then forced to eat this Sunday Roast Grime (£9.99 Special) at one of those commercial chain pubs, which just wasn't authentic enough, so it didn't really count.

I got the idea to serve Sunday Roast for my Saturday birthday through British food-writer/celeb/locavore-enthusiast Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's "The River Cottage Meat Book" -- The bible for fervent carnivores. It's an argument about responsible meat eating/rearing, and a meditation on the art of butchery, just as much as it is a cookbook. It's super overwhelming, it's the book version of Eataly. The thing I most appreciate about Fearnley-Whittingstall's approach to the Roast is that it's so dictatorial; this man is a complete ideologue. There's a section entitled "A Theory on Perfection" that I'm surprised is not just called "On Perfection". And the way he describes the significance of the roast, in such a appreciative and prideful tone: "Serving a roast has long been the most inclusive, magnanimous, and welcoming gesture a house can make to friends and family. [...] Choosing a prime cut and roasting it seems to me a complimentary gesture. It's like saying, "We may boil your shins in wine and make your kidneys into pie, but this fine, lean loin, with its chine and ribs and beautifully marbled meat, we will keep this whole, season it with salt and pepper, roast it hot, serve it bloody, and think of you'". There's just something so quintessentially British about a whole roasted piece of meat: so simple, humble yet honorable. I remember when I went to a pig butchering demonstration by Breslin and Spotted Pig chef, April Bloomfield, that was her philosophy, too -- simplicity, no frills, the ultimate display of respect for an animal.

So I chose to roast 8 lbs of Prime Rib, which was set to feed between 15-20 people. It was quality and organic and wholesale thanks to friend Claudia from Frankies/Prime Meats. I remembered Whittingstall's wise words: "The best roast you ever taste will be the best pice of meat you ever buy. And the best meat you ever taste will probably have been roasted." I didn't fast roast it the way that Whittingstall repeatedly drilled me to do, instead, I opted for a slow roast which took about 5 hours. For the last 15 minutes, I dramatically raised the temperature to get those outside fats melting, and to achieve that caramelized, crisp crust. Even after 5 hours, it was a bit bloody, but a good extra 20 in the oven pinked it right up. There was chicken liver toasts, devils on horsebacks, Yorkshire puddings, roasted veg (and cauliflower, which according to Mark Corrigan from Peep Show is NOT traditional), and gravy (Thanks Janis for the lesson). It was so delicious, I forgot I was supposed to be depressed about London, about aging. So yes, I want to thank everyone who attended my premiere Birthday Roast, and I hope next year I'll be roasting in London. Or over London. Either one.

Since we're on the topic of anglophilia, I wanted to let you all know that I'm taking a break from French cinema and delving into British social realism stuff (aka Kitchen Sink -- my genre). I wanted to share a film that I just finished and loved -- This Sporting Life, a story about a working-class coal miner turned rich, flashy rugby player that really hurt my heart, and plus the lead, Richard Harris is like any straight woman/gay man/heck - straight man's ideal dreamboat (the director, Lindsey Anderson was a repressed gay, slightly relevant). I bet Richard Harris loved himself a good roast!!

The Old Man and the Sea

2011-01-20T22:20:00.000-08:00

Tonight Alex and I attended Scottish fashion photographer Albert Watson's opening at Milk Studios for Paper. The night was sponsored by Macallan, which meant that we were downing 18-year-old scotches like they were $1 well-shots of tequila. It felt so wrong. The biggest face of the night was an actress named Olivia Munn, who's supposedly sexy? Really wishing I was cradling a bottle of Macallan in bed right now..

Olivia Munn - Infamous Hot Dogger

Albert Watson - The Old Man and the Sea

It's Stephen Merchent, co-creator of The Office, looking as awkward as his characters

Dear Diary, Lesley Arfin made me feel uncomfortable today.

"And what did you think about the scotch?"

The column is standing in for Matt.

Mucho gusto, michael musto

Hot man > Ally Hilfigiger

An Attempt to Fathom The French Culture Fetish

2011-01-20T14:29:00.000-08:00

I was 15 and wearing a 'Tintin in Vietnam' t-shirt when I first heard someone use the word "francophile". I wasn't sure what it meant, but becoming one interested me as much as putrid camembert. When I was 16 and Carrie Bradshaw left her charming UWS apartment in New York to realize her clichéd Parisian dream, I wanted to cry. But things happen, time passes and prejudices wane. Suddenly you're denied entry into your favorite country in the whole wide world, and you have little choice but to choose the unassuming sister. In this case, France. So about two months ago, instead of wallowing in my own self-pity, I distracted myself with French culture. So much of it is already woven into Vietnamese culture -- I grew up with parents fluent in French, and on Edith Piaf, pâté, baguettes, butters that didn't smell or taste like butter, so the transition has felt quite natural, as if I'm getting in touch with my very own roots. And I actually think I'm becoming one of them, a francophile. I'm dreaming less of summers in the Cotswolds these days, and more of Provence. Roquefort over Stilton. However, I still don't see myself trying out French men anytime soon, no offense.

The first step I've taken: I've enrolled myself in a french language course at Alliance Française. I'm sharing a classroom with UES moms, retired professors and an 80 y.o. man who insists that you still call servers "Garçon!". When I had more time, I was watching french films non-stop. Mostly films about "The teenage girl on the cusp of sexual awakening, a beloved icon of French cinema". I've still got a massive amount to explore, but Pialat's À Nous Amour is my favorite thus far, a story told elliptically about a young girl's maturity through her relations with different men. Disturbingly resonant. Here's a few of my favorite French film coquettes from Et Dieu… créa la femme, À ma sœur! (Literally "For My Sister", but to the American market - Fat Girl), Naissance des Pieuvres, and À Nous Amour.

Refinery 29 "Missed Connections" Series

2011-01-20T12:10:00.001-08:00

Refinery29

Gothamist

Village Voice

The Huffington Post

I approached Refinery 29 in November about possibly shooting some NY events for them and got an unexpected response from the creative director asking me if I considered myself "ballsy". Piera and Kristian, the Creative Director and NY Editor respectively, then proposed a documentary project based on Craigslist's train-related Missed Connections which I enthusiastically and nervously signed onto. So for a month, I traveled aimlessly everyday underground ISOH (in search of hotties), randomly approaching strangers like a full-on creep and instructed them on how to pose naturally. Sounds completely subjective (and I think that was the main criticism), but that's what physical beauty is, inherently individual. The edited story premiered front-page yesterday, it was entitled (kind of cringing-ly and misleadingly) NYC'S Hottest Subway Routes: 36 Saucy Snaps. I was shocked at how much momentum it gained -- all the comments and repostings (Gothamist, The Huffington Post, Village Voice). Here was my original unpublished introduction to the essay and some of the photos, sans captions.

The subway wasn't designed for you to find your next boyfriend/girlfriend/hook-up. In fact, it will do it's best to ensure that romance is impossible, punish you with extreme humiliation if you even attempt it. It's the complete antithesis of a singles bar -- bright, relatively quiet and devoid of any intoxicating social lubricant (i.e. tequila). The subway experience is the epitome of the word 'communal', yet none of us are dancing to the same song, but nodding our heads to the beat of our own iPods, staring into space as if to say "leave me alone". So when you spot someone you're convinced is your future partner, the hesitation to say "hello" is understandable. How do you even begin to approach someone through the tangle of headphones, with the uncertainty of their response/sexual orientation, and even worse, in front of an eavesdropping audience?

I set out to do a photo project that observed the nature of subway romance -- the stare, the smile, the contiguous elbows. I chose the old-school, more mortifying approach of meeting people -- in person, on the platforms, in the subway cars, and with my bulky camera in their face, nearly knocking over their morning coffees. Whoever I found interesting for this project, I mustered up the courage to speak to, and consequently photograph. My courage never built up, Dale Carnegie's methods failed me, and I started anew each day with a sense of impending mortification. But my understanding of creative success is that it's inextricably linked to risk. Documentary photography only succeeds if you're actively putting yourself out there, your photos are only as strong as how far you extend yourself. Never one to trust fate, I've always had the same philosophy when it comes to romance.

And it paid off, being obnoxiously forward with strangers. Because I learned that strangers are mostly kind and humble, with all different stories to share, and just as eager as you to break up the monotony of the quotidian routine. Of the eighty people I asked to photograph, three people refused. In one situation, I noticed an exotic-looking woman sitting next to me in a packed car. It was 3 pm on a Saturday around Soho, and I asked if I could photograph her. I whipped out my camera assuming a 'yes', but she vehemently declined (she didn't speak english), and I was forced to hold my camera on my lap while we sat side-by-side until Herald Square, the swelling awkwardness and discomfort, the snickering neighbors. Oh, the humiliation!

DUDE IT'S MY BOYFRIEND!

monkey

2010-12-05T17:50:00.000-08:00

Today I did some research and discovered that my vintage monkey coat is actually made from Manteld Guereza. Ignorance is bliss, really.

miami art basel

2010-12-05T07:28:00.000-08:00

I wanted to go there and hate it. So when I bought my last minute plane ticket to join London friend Konstantinos for Miami Art Basel this year, the only expectation I had was maybe enjoying a glorified Cafe Habana meal in the 30 hours or so I would be there. But as soon as I entered my terminal gate at JFK, saw that the flight was packed with beautiful New Yorkers (I know, that sounds incredibly vapid! But I am!), I knew it'd be a pretty entertaining weekend. And indeed, beyond the actual Basel functions, Miami, the city, provided a much needed escape -- the beaches were turquoise, sparse with people and clean (unlike Santa Monica) and I had a library of French language podcasts, vowels that needed repeating.

The first night with my dad, I had an amazing Cuban meal consisting of cafe con leche, ropa vieja, sweet fried plantains in Little Havana. One of my top moments of 2010 was waking up well-rested (albeit in a decrepit hotel) and lunching at the new Soho Beach House's Cecconi, where I experienced, in the beachside garden, a truly blissful "I Am Love" moment between me and my agnolloti. The parties were absolutely surreal and cinematic. I've seen fashion weeks come and go, but this was something else. Everything was just dripping with wealth, style, and decadence... oh yea and there was art, like the poolside performance orchestrated by the artist Mariah Robertson for MoMA P.S 1 event at the Delano or the Island, the site-specific exhibition on a deserted island in front of the Mondrian hotel that was so full that even the artists from the show wouldn't be let on the boats. Truly, the whole 2 days felt like a dream, sandwiched in between the waking hours that is my work in wintry New York.

Ellery

2010-12-01T19:21:00.000-08:00

Rent or FLARES?

the next juergen teller

2010-11-25T21:31:00.000-08:00

is MATT. This was his take on our NY summer. I genuinely love them. Thanks M, you perv!

Summer isn't summer without quotidian nosebleeds.

The Comeback

2010-11-25T20:34:00.000-08:00

I was approached by photographer Therese via Facebook to model for her and Joel. I could just sniff my modeling career comeback, I knew this would be my big break. How could I resist? I gathered that the team were both recent graduates and were looking to bulk up their portfolio. When I had a look at their work, I was really drawn to their cinematic, glossy portraits. If I knew how to handle a camera and had a proper understanding of lighting and post-production and human emotion and drama, I imagine our work might be kind of similar? I don't know, I like to tell myself these things. They're were both extremely efficient and awesome people to work with, and I see a bright future in fashion photography for them both. Here's their website, www.theresejoel.com, and a recent mention on fashion blog, ASVOF. The photos from our shoot this week, which took less than 2 hours, turned out beautifully. Thanks T + J!

From our shoot 11/22:

Therese + Joel, www.theresejoel.com

crime and punishment

2010-11-17T21:58:00.001-08:00

A week ago, we were on a bus driving through snow-glazed lava fields , M and I, headed toward Reykjavik. In that moment, I really should've been lingering above his London stovetop in an oversized tee and slippers, thickening an onion gravy for our supper. But 24 hours before this moment, when I had just stepped off the plane from my stopover in Iceland (hair still matte from hot spring waters), oblivious and swelling with elated anticipation, I was ruthlessly questioned at the UK border, by a uniformed bespectacled, bald man in a row of equally menacing vigil; he didn't quite believe, especially after seeing that I'd been in London five months prior, that I'd come to London for just 13 days to visit my boyfriend and friends. I was set aside for further investigation.

So this is how it began, the most miserable day of my life.

After being searched, fingerprinted and locked in a detention room for hours, I was questioned again by an even more staid Northern woman, with her deceitfully disarming accent, in a small sterile room where the plastic chairs were chained to the floor, to prevent what from happening? I couldn't imagine. She hand-wrote my responses to her questions, and read them back to me, almost mockingly. I cringed as she alluded to passages that she had procured from my very own diary that had been discovered on a meticulous bag search inflicted upon all suspect travelers. Experientially, the search was comparable to having a Beacon's Closet employee rifle through your Ikea bag of stained and unwashed refuse, only this was infinitely more humiliating and consequential. At this moment, wounds still afresh, I can't quite bring myself to flip back and read what I had written in the entries about my last London sojourn (Dec 09 - June 10), but I know there were obvious breaches sprawled out in ink and other border control gems -- mentions of work for Vice, nearly getting arrested in London, my supper club ("where yes, mam, we did charge people money but.."), future hampstead heath aspirations, etc. And there were things that no one except me needed to read, stuff so embarrassing that would make even the Star Wars Kid feel sorry for me.

At the end of my 2nd interview, the woman got up and peered down at me sternly. She said "Things look really bad. Let me present the evidence to my superior, but from my perspective, you can expect a one-year ban from the UK." I could sense how happy it made her to say this to me. How small moments like these, where she felt overcome with an immense responsibility toward her country, had imbued her life with meaning. She said I could be expected to be sent back straight to Iceland (not NY) and to add insult to injury, I couldn't even see my boyfriend, who was already determined, confused and rushing to Gatwick Airport. Back in the detention room awaiting the final decision, I sobbed uncontrollably despite the other prisoner's curious gaze. There were bowls of snacks for us, things like crisps, fresh fruit and cakes, but I knew something was really wrong when I couldn't bring myself to eat free food. How did I get myself into this situation, in a room full of posters advertising human trafficking helplines?? Soon after, the worst was confirmed, and I was to be sent back to Reykjavik the following day. However, as some sort of consolation prize, I wasn't officially banned from the UK.

Awaiting my flight to Iceland, I was to spend the night in a detention center near Gatwick (originally set for far-away Bedfordshire), where visiting hours ended at 9 pm. Where I'd be able to see M, if only for a minute. Hearing this made me sob again, but out of pathetic hope. It was 7:30 pm, and I was on the 16th page of writing my "Notes From the Holding Cell" when two men finally picked me up in an armored car. I really felt like a prisoner when the guard didn't even help me with my suitcase down the stairs. We entered the gated lot of the detention center, I silently yelped like a puppy in the backseat of a car, stretched my neck front, forward and back for any sign of M. But we just sat in the darkness of the parking lot. The two men, their voices muffled by a plastic partition, rated the (un)attractiveness of fellow female coworkers while each torturous minute and second simultaneously petrified and boiled every inch of my body. An attendant finally came around, saw me visibly upset, and rushed me through paperwork to the visiting room where M was nowhere to be seen.

I sat and waited nervously in a designated set-up while guards kept close watch. Across from me was an empty chair, a small table, and a line of duct tape to signify some barrier between visitor and detainee. Around the room, there were other detainees with family, lovers and lawyers, but they chatted comfortably, as if they'd been in the center for awhile. I don't think I'll ever quite forget the ineffable surging euphoria of seeing M enter the room, somehow taller and more handsome than when I last saw him in the NY summer. I must say, he looks really good in sweaters. A certain reality was confirmed and my misery evaporated in his presence. I cried (again) in that moment, but we both soon found it was impossible not to laugh at the absurdly hilarious situation. The duct tape barrier. Our hesitation to hug and kiss in front of the guard's watchful gaze. The mindful multiculturalism of the detention center. In the forty minutes we were given, we quickly made plans fly to Reykjavik together the following morning. Despite the fact that M had critical architectural models to build, he agreed to be my Sonya, to follow me to Siberia to see my punishment through.

M left after 40 minutes and I was back to good spirits knowing I'd see him soon, bantering with the guards while they microwaved me an assortment of mush, and showed me around the facilities as if I was a curious visitor rather than one of the prisoners it was their job to supervise. They commiserated as I explained to them why I was denied entry. They seemed more infuriated by the injustice than me. The detention center was filled with mostly men from third world countries, most of them discovered living and working in the UK illegally and waiting to be sent back to their country or just out of prison. Some illegal Vietnamese men I spoke to had been there for almost a year, their country didn't want to take them back. Though it was a rough and a thoroughly depressing place to be, it still seemed as if they had it pretty good -- arts and crafts classes, libraries, weekly barber visits, sweet shops, internet, TV. That night I could barely sleep on the plastic cot for fear of bed bugs or being molested by one of the many grizzled female (what looked like) prostitutes that occupied the communal bedroom. All night they scratched at the seams of their bras, mumbled prayers and snored gutturally but I managed to fall asleep with all I had on me -- my monkey coat and mom pants, until I was apologetically awoken by an attendant at 5 am; my armored car awaited.

I was transported back to the holding room in the airport until my flight to Iceland. There was a newcomer in the cell, a young American with his head in his knees, however, far from defeated, as his spurts of aggressive ~~behaviour~~ behavior seemed to suggest. He was a completely embarrassing American caricature that made even me give this sort of bemused, apologetic look to the guards, despite after all they'd done to me, as if to say "No, no, please don't confuse us. We're not the same." He was a straw-blonde country singer with a Texas twang, sporting leather riding boots and a cowboy hat. It was his first time outside of the United States; he was visiting his British girlfriend. Brimming with immense national pride, he screamed "This would never happen in the good ol' US of A. Send me back to Nashville! I want to go back to the country where they treat people right!". Then to me, in a whisper, he shared his theory that British spies were planted on the plane -- "This real pretty thang kept puttin' her head in my lap and askin' me all sorts of questions". I said that I'd never encountered one before, "Exactly. They're real good", he said.

My flight came and one of the male guards asked me to double-check all my belongings, "Because that bloke", mistrusting eyes narrowing toward the impoverished black detainee, "has been sitting near your things for awhile." Thought this was perhaps an exemplary illustration of that particular brand of dry British humor, but no, it was just blatant prejudice. I was then escorted to my gate by some other guards that were thrilled to hear M was meeting me. They thought it was terribly romantic and tried to have us seated together. A pinch on the bum outside the gate meant that M had arrived. This time, there was no duct tape barrier. We got on the plane, where I was returned my passport which had a big spiteful hand-written "X" on a UK admittance stamp (my scarlet letter). We flew to Iceland, where we spent five days and lots of money on just ok food. It was more beautiful than I remembered, less cold with M. In my 6 days there, I traveled between 5 hotels. I went to the Blue Lagoon twice (which is beautiful, I recommend it). I watched hours of looping and fuzzy Icelandic television. None of that mattered, I was free.

upstate update

2010-11-17T15:26:00.001-08:00

I've experienced the gargantuan limestone islets of Halong Bay, the lunar nothingness of the Arctic Circle, the acres of kelp forest driving down the PCH. Fall on the East Coast trumps them all.

This is a video of our day spent in upstate NY. The main impetus of the trip admittedly being fresh cider doughnuts from an apple orchard, which was followed by some wood rambling and then a Thai feast at Sripraphai in Queens. A solid day.

I just don't like this kind of living

2010-09-22T19:03:00.000-07:00

matt and I were, together after two months of cohabitation, a pork shoulder so heavily-muscled and dense with connective tissue that breaking us apart necessitated a long and heavy cooking. Our much anticipated roadtrip down south was effectively meant to act as the roast, the thirteen hour drive to north carolina intended to wear us thin, to tire us out of each other before we both returned to our respective homes -- him to London and me to New York. But unfortunately, neither one of us fought (no, the fighting was reserved for his birthday and our last day together), and although for long stretches of time we remained silent in the car, we were both mutually heartened by the oceanic green scenery, the motor court matriarchs driving alongside us, and the educational podcasts that elicited the occasional snicker.

why the south? to understand the significance of my first ever roadtrip down south, you must understand my long-time fascination with the american "country" (as opposed to the city, to the suburbs). in high school, and only to my mom, did I so naturally slide into a Southern accent until she stopped finding it funny and called it condescending, and come to think of it, extremely annoying. You must understand the difficulty I experienced deciding on "The Back Porch" as the name of my WNYU alt-country podcast. the years spent extolling the virtues of traveling down a long expansive road, the romanticism of a neon-lit motel sign. the months I labored in a london kitchen, eager to spread the joy of american comfort cuisine. yes, this roadtrip, was as much about the sating of my desire to converge reality with idealization as it was the tightening/loosening of my grip on my relationship with matt. I was also deeply curious about "hush puppies".

what memories from our metaphorical roast will persist....

1) in a canoe, us chasing my hell-bent havianas sandal downstream
2) the existence of a bar in Boone patronized by college kids dawning baseball caps where you can purchase a beer and a well drink for only $5
3) our inability to articulate, despite our linguistic acumen, what makes kudzu so fucking creepy
4) the home-style restaurant in Virginia that seated us in an entirely different room, far from all the other patrons. Was it my age? ethnicity? tattered short shorts? A combination of them all? I'll never know.

and now that matt is back in london, besides his boxer shorts, these memories are all I have left! so now back to normalcy I guess, to sleeping diagonally with both my laptop and iphone tucked under my pillow, netflix sleeves instead of limbs splayed across my bed. to making tea, without earnest, and not necessarily with any intention of actually drinking. maybe just to fill the time or as an appropriate display of homage to the londoner once co-occupying my home.

faaaashunnnn

2010-09-22T09:46:00.000-07:00

To keep up with the real purpose of my blog, a progress report on my so-called professional "career", I am now going to include some of my photo coverage for Paper Magazine this past S/S11 NY fashion week. Turbulent night out with Matt as my photographer's assistant, Anna Wintour, some of Sonic Youth, Oak, and Threeasfour here.

Below are some photos of friends, the familiar, or other. Other people I found interesting. Like, the girl below, I find her incredibly stunning and visually indelible, like in the same but completely opposite way as this Lynchian creation. So much so that looking at her photo now, I'm wondering what she eats for breakfast, and if she speaks more than one language? The boy below her -- is he aware that he is an exact replica of my friend Marlon?

Anyway. Mild fun was had, substances and sponsored liquor abused, trends noted, cabs taken, and I am glad it is over.