I don't own one, but I like the idea

"Blue blooded. Cold. What happened to luxury? Where did all the personality go? The gusto? The glamour? We believe you can have it all. Luxury with lightning in its veins. Charismatic. Daring. Derivative of nothing. This is what fuels us. The reason we're not satisfied with blue blooded ordinary, and demand red blooded extraordinary. This is why we don't just make luxury cars, we make Cadillacs."

Alabama Shakes

a whispering breeze

beware, white man, of the friendly forest,

of the painted desert, beware of the singing water

lest you find your mother

and she pounce and devour you

--Jaime de Angulo

"Home Among the Swinging Stars"

Coming Soon

I recently spent a few days at a hermitage in Big Sur, or to clarify, a Benedictine monastery of hermetic monks. They make their living from renting out rooms to the wayward relaxation-seeker. They also sell fabulous brandy-soaked fruit cakes. I've got a thought or two about that I'm going to throw down here as soon as I type it up off my Moleskine.

Here are a few pictures of the trip to set the scene.

Om Chanel Om

Big Surf

Last week I witnessed some of the biggest waves I've seen on a beach-- well, certainly for sleepy Cayucos. A quiet half-fogged morning saw foam higher than the pier. So, I walked out on the pier. Where better to enjoy a coffee and two snickerdoodles (one of which was complimentary because "the one I gave you was not perfectly round")?

Obsessed

Haiku pour le Fin de l'Annee

Is this the right bus?

I'm sure the sign is correct;

Wait for the next stop.

Angeles Crest Highway, Downtown LA in the distance.

Le Petit Dejeuner Norway

Once, this was my breakfast in Norway. It was this, or fish. It was too early for fish.

Frittata-la-la

Americano and a bar stool at Intelligentsia Pasadena.

Gruyere, bacon and leek frittata, roasted potatoes, and greens in lemon vinaigrette. Deadly combination, covering allt the basics of a nutritious breakfast.

"There is pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar.

I love not man the less, but Nature more." 

                - Lord Byron

the mood

Succulent display at Cambria Pines Nursery.

It is always so nice to spend time in your favourite places. It gets hard to do when you have so many, but the Central Coast is always my number one (practical option-- one day, Paris). Rolling golden hills, sheer craggy cliffs, wine, sea, and mist-- and condors. What is there not to be obsessed with?

Such fairytale flora everywhere, especially at Cambria Pines Lodge and Nursery.

           

A Gryphon. Gar!

Hearst Castle in the sunset.

Nothing finer than rocky shores in the mist.

T(Rick)y Owens

I cannot even begin.

Fall 2011 RTW.

The high desert in an ominous mood.

Biker jacket. The best. $2,465 on net-a-porter.com

There are no other leather leggings (except The Row). $2,180

On Bygdøy Peninsula in Oslo, Norway. It was not so confusing as it looks, and I was not actually lost. (Sorry).

Lounge here now. Now. Forever.

Fall 2009 RTW.

                                                 

Bygdøy. Norway has the darkest landscape I have ever seen. I loved it. Freezing water, too. Great stuff.

Both have such unyielding rigidity, the first in material the second in form. BUT the lines of the first and texture of the second? Such dichotomy I am swooning.

Goth drama a la perfection. $2,130

Rick Owens' home and workspace. How cold and fuzzy at the same time. I think this room might be so elegant it's literally painful to be in. Again, I love it.

         
         

So simple it slays me. This looks like an accident of gravity at a construction site. Amazing.

 

Still Bygdøy looking across the harbor.

WHAT IS GOING ON. A good question. Generally, I'm not sure. In the above set of images? Yeah, there I am. Because I put them there. Why? Because I was inspired by none other than fashion design Rick Owens, he of the uber-sleek tres-dark minimalism and excellent drapery/cutting/leather/black.

Found out (several months late-- I'm slipping) that he designs furniture as well. Apparently he began with the accoutrements for his own workshop and digs in Paris (pic of that above. melting), but there have also been exhibitions of his work. I know this may seem like an overstatement, but it's killing me. It's gorgeous. I have adored his fashion work (and interesting life story, which won't go here) for years and frothed over his garments every time I spy them in a store (sadly a rare occurrence in this state). His leather leggings? The layer of skin I've never had and can't yet afford. His leather jackets? The pinnacle of all I adore and the paragon whose imitators I can't even afford but covet for their similarity to his work. Everything else he does? Excellent along similar lines.

His clothes are sparse, harsh, and direct. So is his furniture. But there is an organic element in texture and shape in both modes that speaks of unrelenting creativity and inimitability of design. These qualities remind me of the landscape of Norway-- a place I think his world would fit like a (fine black leather) glove. The dark, the stone, the moss, and the black cold water echo the magical and frightening ethereal aura of Rick Owens' clothes and furniture. Therefore I have included some pictures (one of a lonely desert road in a storm, which is also similar) of myself in a Norwegian forest lanscape. It is actually the island/peninsula of Bygdøy in the center of Oslo's bay, but it feels like a remote country coast. It is coincidentally where the world-renowned (and rightly so) Viking Ship Museum is located. The landscape is so dramatic and dark I used images I am in because I purposefully tried to make each of them awkward by my presence, pose, and face. That's me, destroying pure beauty everywhere I go. Good thing men like Rick Owens are out there creating more of it.

I've Swam in the Eel

I am mildly obsessed with both this band and this song lately-- my "Southwest" motif penchant blending with mentions of the Sunset Strip and rivers in Oregon? Spun with the Americana folksy magical realism of Blitzen Trapper? May be a song about a serial killer, but he has good travel tastes and this might be love.