Group Therapy

We're like "Kids" again every time my photog friend J.R. convenes Art Class on a random Sunday. Word to MGMT, the energy is straight back-to-school: crayons and Cray-Pas, paints and paper, and, during this latest edition, suds and salsa.

What began more than a year ago for and at the downtown apartment of another friend, J.A., soon blossomed into group sessions.

The regulars are complemented by a rotation of guest pupils: photographers, painters, clothing and graphic designers, graffiti artists, cultural taste-makers...

J.R. is a new recipient of the prestigious LMCC grant, so we took class on the road to her spacious studio, where J.A. proved she's in her Blue Period, sketching a masterpiece under our noses in her personal pad. Oh, you think I'm kidding?

We make masterpieces here, lol. Reveling in the the waxy scent of Crayolas, the smeared goodness of Cray-Pas, we come to group, make art, and take only what we need from it.

(Oh, Good Afternoon, Leroy Jenkins; photo courtesy of Jane Aiello)

In the Mood For Love

Sometimes when I'm strolling in my neighborhood after-hours - the crowds receded, giving way to scents, sounds, shop windows - I feel like I've stumbled onto a Wong Kar-Wai set. In the Mood For Love, 1962 Hong Kong to be exact. Sublime. (Netflix it.)

Tried Sleeping With a Broken Heart; Popped an Ambien Instead

Not only has this song been lodged in my head for two weeks and counting, it's the most uplifting lullaby I've heard in a minute. Maybe it's the la, la, la's...or maybe I just hear joy where I want to hear it;)

Rihanna Takes a Bow

I know that stylist Mariel Haenn is the real wizard behind Rihanna's we're-not-in-Barbados-anymore transformation, but I'm feeling the looks all the same. (That said, I did take issue with the heavy-handed Sharon Stone/Basic Instinct sartorial reference she pulled for Rih on that ABC primetime interview a couple weeks ago.)

Anyone who's met me can attest to my taste for bold lip color, and my tendency to force aggression onto my girlish pieces.

So, for instance, a recent photo of Rih on her birthday in militarized Bess boots and a Ladies-Who-Lunch, body-hugging sweater dress was right up my alley. Say what you will about her style not being organic but she gives off something far more authentic than the average pop star.


Her December Glamour magazine cover and spread now ranks as one of my favorites. (And goodness knows I'm a Vogue girl.)

Georgia (O'Keeffe) On My Mind

All of me is waiting for you to touch the center of me with the center of you.

That's Georgia O'Keeffe from one of hundreds of letters she wrote to her mentor and husband, the photographer Alfred Stieglitz. I don't know about you but I think there's something lost in the shorthand of email and text messaging. That's a love letter.

This is not, lol: Cnt wait 2 c u.

There are those artists you overlook because your earliest exposure to them was decidedly low-brow - like dentist's office waiting room low-brow. At least that's where I remember first seeing American artist Georgia O'Keeffe's (1887-1986) blooming flower paintings.

But the painter's oeuvre is so much more than climaxing flora or throbbing wombs. She was creating studies on nature. I got to see those as well as her watercolors and charcoal drawings dating back to the 1910s up-close this past week at the Whitney's exhibit of her work, "Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction".

Her technique - borrowed from Modernist photography - was radical - but her process was all emotion.

(Seen above, one of my faves, "Wave, Night", 1928, Oil on canvas) Whitney Museum of American Art, 75th and Madison Ave., 6 to 77th Street.

Sly Fox

I love the idea of young auteurs like Spike Jonze and Wes Anderson taking on children's classics, and I'm a serious die-hard for all things Anderson. (Even his lesser works like The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004) or The Darjeeling Limited (2007)are visual marvels to dissect.)

So I was just tickled when walking last Thursday on the Upper East Side, I caught sight of some of the actual animated figures and sets from Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) propped up in the windows of Bergdorf Goodman (pictured above, sorry shabby camera phone!). This row of general stores, delis, law offices, and more, made the Barbie Dream House of my youth look like the work of pre-schoolers.

Anderson has taken his painstaking attention to detail to new heights in this stop-motion animation flick, forbidding the use of any CGI to create everything from grass (terry cloth) to water (Saran Wrap).

I stood chatting and gawking with another onlooker about how life-like the little creatures looked (real fur was used) - as well their habitats. Anderson has them wearing real corduroy suits, for instance, albeit tiny versions of Savile Row tailoring. It's a worth a walk on the East Side to peep!

Brothers and Sisters: Acting Out

For my friend V, who's an accomplished actress, it was no thing to spend parts of the last two weekends at the iconic Public Theater on Lafayette, but for me it was a wonder. She scored tickets for us to see a trilogy of works called the Brother/Sister Plays.

It's been a while since I saw so much staged work and in so little time. Add to that, she got us backstage access to meet and chat with the handsome and insanely talented playwright, 29-yo Tarell McCraney, and the cast of equally talented actors, as Oskar Eustis nibbled on pizza nearby before jumping on his bike homeward.

The plays, which borrow liberally from Yoruba legend, follow brothers Ogun and Oshoosi Size, and a satellite of orbiting characters from Elegba to Oshun. Set in the Louisiana bayou, the dialogue has a rich, contemporary flavor. McCraney can weave in laugh-out-loud references to G-Unit and Ralph Tresvant, even while exploring themes like black male sexuality.

So inspiring being in the company of bright, young, black, M.F.A.-having actors, V (fresh off Ruined) included. You must see these plays, I'd recommend seeing Part II if you can't do both. (Thru Dec. 13)

Life Is 'Precious'

Every couple of months or so, I'll be racing up the stairs of my building only to stumble over my neighbor splayed out on the steps with her pink backpack at her feet. She's about 14, skin the color of cooling espresso, and although she is baby-faced, she stands 6' with an equally imposing weight.

On the days she forgets the keys to the apartment she shares with her mother, she lies in wait. Her mother shares her physical dimensions but with a masculine frame and the combat-booted gait to match. Unfortunatly, I'm witness to the tongue lashings she endures for minor offenses like forgetting her keys.


My young neighbor is precious and a teenage girl's psyche is fragile. Every word you aim at them is a weapon. How many times have you passed an exhausted, bitter mother berating her little ones?

So I try the little bit I can to sprinkle verbal honey her way, whatever I can do to cut the sting. When I first started seeing the trailers for "Precious" (Nov. 6), starring 24-yo newcomer and Harlemite Gabby Sidibe, I couldn't help but flash to my neighbor. One of a few films I'm genuinely eager to see.

Raymond vs. Raymond

A couple days ago, I caught an episode of PBS' American Masters (ugh, I love this long-running series), focussing on the legendary Marvin Gaye. On a random note, I didn't know Marvin's father - an abusive, troubled minister who shot and killed his son in 1984 - had a serious cross-dressing habit!

Anyway, the segment in which they revisited Marvin's post-divorce album, Here, My Dear, reminded me of Usher, who's dissolving his own marriage to the much-maligned Tameka Foster. During their union, Foster was Yoko Ono'd on nearly every blog; women just couldn't stomach her.


Gaye spun the strife, conflict, and projected alimony payments from his crumbling union with Anna Gordy into Here, My Dear. That LP included "Anna's Song," kinda like "Papers" for the late '70s. After Usher's lukewarm Here I Stand, maybe he'll find his post-nuptial fire like Marvin did.

Prison Break...Wasted A Million Flows

Is it just me or does it seem counterintuitive to put a rapper on ice when he's bringing heat?

The inexplicably prolific author of '08's Top-selling album with a rebirth in the offing; the 27-yo Young Money Entertainment general with a raspy, Robitussin DM-laced growl who spits the dirtiest clean I know (ask Nivea or Lauren London if you don't believe me, lol).


I know that every man has to be accountable for his actions, but the particulars of Lil Wayne's attempted weapons possession case are questionable. My heart sank a little when I saw flicks of a resigned-looking Weezy heading into a Manhattan courthouse last month.

Another young black man entering the revolving door of the prison industrial complex. In February 2010 a judge'll hand down a yearlong sentence as part of a plea deal.

(Consider this: In 2003, a U.S. Justice Department report estimated that about 10.4% of the Black male population ages 25 to 29 was incarcerated.)

Regardless of how much rap has glorified the bid, there's nothing glamorous about a pen - unless you're using it to write bars. And no matter what issues we might have with his extracurriculars, Wayne belongs on a stage, not in a cage.

A Ray of Light

Ray of Light is one of those albums that I come back to again and again, like a musical Bhagavad Gita. It's Madonna and the genius William Orbit at their collaborative best - this is what Awakening sounds like.

The "Material Girl" becoming a Spiritual Girl.

Look at the LP cover: She never glowed like she did c.1998; that Ashtanga yoga practice was serious. When I'm getting too far from the center, this collection helps bring me back to mental equilibrium, organic fruit, white tea, Buddha beads, lotus position, and right mind.

What Big Eyes You Have!

I know a little something about wolves in sheep's clothing...maybe that's why am I so enchanted these days by the saga of Little Red Riding Hood.

In September, for Fashion's Night Out, Vogue editrix extraordinaire Grace Goddington recreated her recent 'Lil Red fashion spread for the PRADA Store windows, showing well-suited wolves out to tea with leggy, couture-clad mannequins.

But truth be told I get a kick outta the saucy undertones. In the adaptation that I dig, it's about a good girl in a hooded red toggle cape on the verge of going bad. Into the woods...and into...serious mischieflaughs.

I mean, she's carrying a bottle of Bordeaux and couple of baguettes in that basket. That definitely wasn't for Grandma. (Illustration, Odessa Sawyer, 2004)

Boy Meets Girls, Girls, Girls...and More Girls

I just read a fascinating Q&A in the November Elle with Diddy, who shares this recollection with columnist Andrew Goldman:

I was in pursuit of female attention from when I was probably four or five. It started with my mother's friends putting me to sleep on their laps.

You've met this guy, right? He might not have had a record label and a net worth of $380 million, lol, but I bet he was just as charming and swaggerific. What, you thought you captured his attention? [Laughs.] So did the next chick.

Guys like Diddy live with a gnawing hunger for affirmation from the opposite sex that has no point of satisfaction: They're never full (and seldom fullfilled), always chasing, looking for something off the menu.

Unless they undergo some seismic transformation, guys like this always comes up short 'cause they can't see the value of the one (The One?)- over the many.

Cop that Elle!

The History of Glamour

Before Theresa Duncan dug into a glass bowl of Benadryl and Tylenol PM to take her own life, she'd been a writer/filmmaker/gaming designer for girls. Duncan also spent the better part of 12 years as one half of a glamorous art world couple with her boyfriend, the equally talented multimedia artist Jeremy Blake.


As tragic stories go theirs is major (Gus Vant Sant and Bret Easton Ellis have a biopic in mind and are writing the screenplay). A week after 40-year-old Duncan's suicide in 2007, the naked body of 35-year-old Jeremy was found off the waters of Rockaway Beach.

Among the ambitious projects they realized was Duncan's wry, genius, loosely autobiographical The History of Glamour (2000), a 40-minute animated flick that showed in that year's Whitney Biennial. Blake served as co-illustrator and art director. I'm just absorbed and tickled by this vid:

Video: "The History of Glamour," by Theresa Duncan Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.com

Massacre... J. Cole

The man who would be King.

The Blues

The bike, the blues, the Louboutin shoes.

The Present is a Gift....

A confession. When I worked at a daily paper and was producing clips at a fast clip, I often found myself torn between wanting to share a piece I was proud of and a desire to refrain from huffing and puffing too much, a desire to leggo my ego.

Similarly with this blog: I vacillate between using the most public of forums to promote it and then hanging my head over the shameless plugging [laughs]. Ideally, you'd feel comfortable to come to it as you please - be it once a week or once a year.

Well last Monday, I had one of the most BEautiful nights I've had in a long time, seeing Maxwell and Common in concert on the same night. I was reminded of Common's liner notes for the '05 album Be.

If you build, defend, make, heal, bridge, or connect things, people, or moments for a living and ever feel conflicted about recruiting soldiers to your movement, luring captains to your street team - just gotta acknowledge the source. Regardless of where/how/to whom you bow your head.

Dark & Lovely: A Good HAIRstory

There were three things I wanted when I was starting school for the first time:

1. A LISP
2. A BROKEN ARM
3. A HEAD OF STRAIGHT HAIR

The Long Island Catholic school I went to from pre-K-8th was initially predominantly white, and for the first couple years, I was the token black girl (named becky) in my grade. Whenever you're outnumbered, whatever the majority is doing/being can seem appealing, sanctioned.


So no matter how many Cosby-worthy affirmations about how beautiful and gifted I heard I was at home, when I stepped onto that asphalt playground, felt like I came up short.

Since the Tiffanys and Danielles had lisps - forget that this was a speech impediment, I used to fake one for good measure. Broken arms and legs requiring casts that begged to be signed and doodled on? OMG, I wanted a cast! (But I never broke any bones and my theory is that my Caribbean family didn't ski.)



And they had hair I noticed most when the last bell rang: In one sweep, they'd slip zippered jackets over uniforms and fling a grip of hair out from pressed collars. Like the shampoo commercials. I mean, Dark & Lovely was good, but I wanted to be Pert Plus, Head and Shoulders above my classmates.

Years later, I'd chop it all off, go back to the natural essence, before finally realizing it doesn't define me.

So I get why Chris Rock thought Good Hair was a compelling topic for a documentary. Opening this Friday, and nationwide Oct. 23, Rock is pulling the curtain back on black girls' relationship with their hair. From what I've seen so far, I think it's flawed by sweeping generalizations, but dude is a comedian not a professor of African-American studies.

I'm curious, will you see it?

Gentlemen Prefer Heels

It's no secret that when it comes to footwear, men almost to a head prefer heels on a woman. I think in the male fantasy, we'd step off the stoop always looking like Cassie and Lauren in a Sean John ad.

And most of us willingly indulge this preference: We do feel sexier when we're strapped (to heels!), after all, and we (for the most part) appreciate the extra love we get in the streets for making the effort.

But in New York, a pedestrian city that sits on killer sidewalks, running around in killer heels can be taxing, even injurious. Some of us resort to the Superman-in-the-booth quick change from flats to heels.

Though there's something inelegant about ramming your bare feet into a pair of peep-toes on a subway platform as you balance latte, oversize clutch, and mag.



So give the arches a break! To be shod in sole-ful shoes can be appealing...right? [Laughs] I nominate Christian Louboutin's dazzling Fred Flat Lace-Ups as a counterpoint to your most flirty frocks. (Above, variations on the dance shoe by Louboutin and Repetto.)

I Want to Be Influential: A Great Sunday in Brooklyn

Are you standing in someone's else's light? Reflecting...Drawn like a gypsy moth to their fire when you could be generating your own?

The Mighty Mos Def once remarked that you should not only "shine your light on the world," but "shine your light for the world to see." At the Corridor Gallery this past Sunday for the "Brooklyn Influence" exhibit featuring the portraiture of lensman Jamel Shabazz, I was struck by how each of his subjects seemed to emit a certain light.

Now maybe that's just Shabazz's extraordinary documentary touch at work, but it's probably a combination of both. Somewhere in the gallery literature, I read that the borough claims the highest concentration of artists, activists, and entrepreneurs. It sure feels that way.

The light was blinding.

The show, running through Nov. 7, is curated by Raquel Wilson in conjunction with the community arts organization Dope Swan to commemorate the anniversary of “A Great Day in Brooklyn” and “Another Great Day in Brooklyn.” (Rapper/Actor/Activist Mos Def, above, by Jamel Shabazz)