KATE WINSLET AS MILDRED PIERCE

So I am strolling home from work, feeling like a peacock among hens, as I made my way down 5th Ave., in my spiffy Callanan boater and retro looking jacket from Ralph Rugby. As I turned onto 26th and Broadway, I found myself attired to play costar to Kate Winslet in the HBO drama series Mildred Pierce. So it begs the question does art imitate life or does life imitate art. Fedoras, boaters, bowlers and suitings a la steelpunk have been trending a a few years now. Is Hollywood/TV creating or following this retro trend.
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THE GLASS MENAGERIE

The current production of Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie, is just spellbinding, gut wrenching, thought provoking. It is the type of production that you rehash in your mind long after the curtains come down. The set is a bleak backdrop reflecting the bleak life of the characters. Judith Ivey is just wonderful as Amanda with her delusions of grandeur. Patch Darragh as Tom, is the care taker in the asylum he is born into, hating his crazy mother while while putting-up-with his cripple sister.He has illusions of running away with the merchant marines to escape his situation. Finally, like his father, he is forced to fly to survive. Keira Keelley as Laura, lives in her own made-up-world in order to avoid the weight of disappointment she bring to her mother and which her mother constantly reminds her about while recalling her own delusional past of splendid glory. Michael Mosley is the one who flies over the cuckoo nest as the guest gentleman caller, Jim O'Connor. He is the only one to show Laura some human kindness and advise. Laura seems to blossom for a few minutes only to fall back into malaise when Jim reveals is already taken.
http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/theater/reviews/25glass.html

HAT DIRECTIONS

A customer recently christened me "John (the wizard of head-wear/accessories)" which is a very humbling complement. Afterwards he said he was drunk and it was late when he sent the e mail but nevertheless, it was a kind backhanded complement. 3 years ago he carried no hats in his 4 stores and today hats are the fastest growing department in his store. This year we should hit $90,000 wholesale and he loves the margins. I listen to his needs and he follows my trend suggestions.So here is where it's (h)at for fall 2010.
*MILITARY/UTILITARIAN a la Mark Jacobs. Just go easy on the camo. Look for more military details in the cuts, colors and trims.The MILITARY cap shown will be available in ALL MAJOR NATIONWIDE stores under the John Callanan Legacy label.
*THE AVENGERS a la HERMES. Think Joanna Lumley as Purdy donning a British bowler and you got the look. Lilly Cole has been pulling the look of quite well lately.

OTTO DIX AT THE NEUE GALERIE

Dix's work are just awesome from beginning to end.In many of the portraits I noticed that his subjects are depicted with animal like qualities from the rat like lawyer Fritz Glaser to the cat like female "Reclining Woman on a Leopard skin". Maybe his exposure to gruesome human death during his early years left him void of human feelings. His subjects, seen through his steely eyes come across as skin and bones that can be discarded on a whim.They are passive, powerless and sallow-faced people unsure of their future. They do not try to catch our eye but look wonder to something that we cannot see and leave us with the haunting feeling the end is near for them.
Skip the lovely located yet overpriced café at the museum with the poor service bland Austrian/German cuisine.
Exhibitions Exhibition Images OTTO DIX
March 11-August 30, 2010


This spring, Neue Galerie New York presents “Otto Dix,” the first solo museum exhibition of works by this major German artist ever held in North America. Organized by Olaf Peters, Professor of Modern Art History and Art Theory at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, the show will open at the Neue Galerie, then travel to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

More than almost any other German painter, Otto Dix (1891-1969) and his works have profoundly influenced the popular notion of the Weimar Republic. His paintings were among the most graphic visual representatives of  that period, exposing with unsparing and wicked wit the instability and contradictions of the time.

The exhibition includes more than 100 masterpieces by Otto Dix, and addresses four themes. The first is Dix’s traumatic experiences as a soldier in World War I. The second is portraiture, a genre at which the artist excelled. The third is sexuality, a key theme in the Dix oeuvre. The fourth is religious and allegorical painting. The show includes the work that Dix is best know for—paintings from the so-called “golden Weimar years”—but to contextualize them, it also includes Dix’s work from the early 1920s, as well as his later work, produced as veiled protest against the Third Reich.
http://www.neuegalerie.org/museum

FIVE FINGER SHOES

It takes a lot to impress this shoe ho but I love my new five finger shoes by VIBRAM. Not only are they getting me mega attention but they actually work to improve the posture. I feel so much awareness in my feet and find myself subconsciously and very subtly moving my feet to re-balance.I wore them biking, and hiking over rocks in up state New York and even gave them a test run to a yoga class on Monday. The rubber sole gives super support but unlike nasty flip flops there is no toe clinching. Big thanks to Winter and Darla from KENCO store in Kingston NY for getting me to buy these. At KENCO they actually measure your foot for correct fit. When was the last time you had such good service?