Stuff, soup, uniforms
“They don’t know how to do a shape, so they do a sparkle.”
I got to talk to Paige Powell last night.
At the “soup battle” dinner following Kim Hastreiter’s exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch. After the soups, Joey Arias’s three songs, and then the cakes, which were ceremoniously brought out like a funerary march, sparklers sparkling. Isabelle was concerned for her hair. A solemn adagio played.
If it’s not obvious, this was all pitch-perfect and fun, kudos Kim.
Paige is so chatty and bubbly but deadpan.
She told me she left her sweater inside a drawer in her hotel room in Rancho Mirage and when she called the hotel to try to get it back, she realized the person she was talking to wasn’t a person, then got them to admit it, “yes, I am an AI agent.”
I love Paige’s voice. I couldn’t help but think about how much Andy Warhol must have loved to listen to her drone on.
It’s a dying art, knowing how to hang.
At dinner, Mel Ottenberg and Ron Finley both asked me “are you wearing Thierry Mugler?”
I was.
I’m always thinking about what to wear so I can schlep around between events and functions all day and night in a comfortable shoe and when I see a picture of myself, I won’t be alarmed that I look “bedraggled” — to use one of my mother’s favorite words. Another phrase she loves is “like a drowned rat.”
The answer is a uniform.
Working on Kim’s book STUFF (which launched yesterday at the exhibition), I was very inspired by her approach to a uniform. She has a whole section in the book on her custom-made suits loosely inspired by the classic Mao suit and the French workers suit: “I’ve worn the same full, softly pleated skirt and clean, loose boxy jacket every day of my life for the past 30 years,” she writes. Last night in pink.
Gia Kuan also wore pink.
Part of my uniform is this cotton chamois blazer by Thierry Mugler. The material is very casual, and in a mustard brown, it’s almost like a chamois workshirt. But the sculptural form does the heavy lifting.
When we were at Lucien’s on Thursday for Frank Nesbitt’s birthday, Mekala Rajagopal read some of the other girls eating there (not anyone at our table to be clear): “They don’t know how to do a shape, so they do a sparkle.”
I hadn’t been to Lucien’s literally in years, but I went twice in a week. The time before Frank’s dinner was with Alex Auder, the night she presented her dad’s film at Anthology, a film she stars in with Cookie Mueller and Gary Indiana. Her dad Michel Auder has a show opening soon at OCD Chinatown. At Anthology, Alex excused his absence saying he was in Poland visiting his younger girlfriend: “He’s still at it, he’s 80 and she’s 40.”
One of the only times I ever really hung out with Gary he told this story about Michel and how one of his former girlfriends had called Gary out of the blue, suspicious that Michel was asking people to write letters of recommendation for this other woman’s work visa, the implication being Michel was fucking this woman or scheming to, and that the girlfriend (a famous artist, I won’t say who) was clueless if she was surprised by something like this after so many years.
Even if I think it probably was surprising, the way it is when the serial-monogamist type of pussy hound gets his sights on another woman after being so hopelessly devoted to you, Gary was amazing in how he told the story off-the-cuff, so it ended with a tight one liner: “I guess all her brilliance is in her photos.”
“The East Village is a vibe,” Kellian Delice said when we were en route to Lucien’s for Frank’s birthday, walking from Nightclub 101 where Sigrid Lauren was having her birthday. Nightclub 101 is the Baby’s All Right guys’ new spot at the old Pyramid Club. Sigrid’s husband’s outfit did the reno, Top Hat Construction.
It still smelled like paint.
The East Village IS a vibe. I think we’re about to see a shift back north of Houston. I’ll be back at Nightclub 101 again soon anyways for the Zohran Mamdani for mayor fundraiser on February 25.
I needed to be well-dressed for the schlep yesterday because it was a long day starting with the Anna Sui fashion show at the National Arts Club at 2. Then before Kim’s, a new years afternoon house party at Tin Nguyen’s where I learned Tin keeps a portrait of his mother in his fridge. I knew that would be shoes-off function, so I wore something easy to slip on and off.
Not a boot.
Questionable decision for the snow. But I wasn’t thinking about the snow even though now I remember the news was on at the nail salon where I’d gone in the morning to get a mani: black matte. The nail salon is the only place I watch local news. I’m honestly not sure I would know anything about congestion pricing if I didn’t get my nails done.
I loved the shoes at the Anna Sui show, a John Fluevog collab. The mary janes especially reminded me of these Prada shoes my mom got me at an outlet mall when I was a teenager which I sometimes regret getting rid of. I have a lot of shoes like this, including Y2K Tsubos, saved on my watchlists, but I never buy them. Not my Kibbe, I tell myself. I’m into style rules.
I took a picture of Debbie Harry at the show, before I asked Natasha Stagg who she was. I’m annoying.
Debbie was sitting across from us.
So was Sofia Coppola.
I thought Sofia Coppola seemed tall but I googled her and it says she’s only 5’4” or 5’5”. (This is what David Kibbe means about vertical line.)
Sofia Coppola was with two teenagers who when I asked if they liked the show said, “Obsessed!”
If you’re 35, like me, the show’s vision of “Madcap Heiress” was very teen dream. Teen Vogue launched the year I turned thirteen, the year I gave my first hand job in a movie theater watching Lost in Translation. Everything was Marc Jacobs, Anna Sui, and Sofia Coppola. I was obsessed with window shopping at this shoe store in Calgary, the only place that had Camper and Fluevog.
Now that I’ve written so much about my chamois jacket, I wonder if I’ll feel self-conscious repeating it again this week. I have three events where I’ll be in front of an audience.
MONDAY I’m reading at McNally Jackson Seaport
Feb 10, 6pm4 Fulton St
Presented by Pleasure Lists
Dalya Benor, Emmeline Clein, Camille Sojit Pejcha, Whitney Mallett, Rachel Syme, Sophie Haigney, and Lauren Servideo
THURSDAY I’m reading at Susan Inglett Gallery
Feb 13, 6 to 8pm522 West 24 St
Presented by Sam Falb's “Home Gallery” newsletter
Whitney Mallett, Matt Starr, Chris Murphy, Sahir Ahmed, Camille Sojit Pejcha, Brianna Lance, and Devan Díaz
SATURDAY I’ve organized a screening and discussion at Metrograph
Feb 15, 6pm7 Ludlow St
COFFY (1973) starring Pam Grier
Inspired by Brandon Harris’s essay in The Whitney Review issue 004
on Blaxploitation and the legacy of selling radicalismPost-screening discussion with Brandon and Kiernan “Knives” Francis, Maya Kotomori, and ThugPop
8 to 10pm little hang after (details announced at the screening)
Polaroid of Gia Kuan and me, taken last night by her husband, Anatoly Kirichenko.
Kim and me inside her book Stuff: A New York Life of Cultural Chaos.
Even in the wrong shoes, I loved the snow.