Knight and Day

Knit One, Purl Two

K is King

Guard: Robin of Locksley, where is your king? 
Robin Hood: King? King? And which King might that be? 
King Richard? King Louis? King Kong? Larry King? 
— Robin Hood: Men in Tights, 1993

Akira Kurosawa’s 100th Birthday

In a mad world, only the mad are sane. — Akira Kurosawa
Today marks the 100th birthday of filmmaker Akira Kurosawa (March 23, 1910 — September 6, 1998), the master of everything from samurai epics to Shakespeare, and indelible  dreams to gritty noir. In celebration, the Criterion Collection has released Yojimbo and Sanjuro on Blu-Ray, and if you want more, check out Criterion’s 25-DVD box set, AK 100. If I had that set, I’d start by watching every film featuring Toshiro Mifune.

Size Matters

Variations on a Theme

Brand Boulevard, Glendale, CA, 8:52 am

Starter Collection

In May, Christie’s New York will auction Abstract Expressionist works owned by  recently-deceased writer and art collector Michael Crichton; four of the paintings, including a Stars and Stripes Flag by Crichton’s friend, Jaspar Johns, are estimated at approximately $32 million. 
Fortunately you can acquire your own collection of mid-20th Century masterpieces for a mere $4.40 at your local post office. Last week, the United States Postal Service issued a pane of commemorative stamps featuring renowned Abstract Expressionist works arranged in a pane to suggest a gallery wall. The set was designed by Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, Maryland and curated by Kessler and Jonathan Fineberg, a professor of art history at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
The USPS collection includes:
The Liver Is the Cock’s Comb (1944) — Arshile Gorky
The Golden Wall (1961) — Hans Hofmann
Romanesque Façade (1949) — Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974)
Asheville (1948) — Willem de Kooning
La Grande Vallée 0 (1983) — Joan Mitchell 
Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 34 (1953–1954) — Robert Motherwell
Orange and Yellow (1956) — Mark Rothko
1948–C (1948) — Clyfford Still
Achilles (1952) — Barnett Newman
Convergence (1952) — Jackson Pollock

The Indomitable “I”

Jon Hamm is Such a Doll

Mattel announced the release of its Mad Men doll collection, featuring Don and Betty Draper, Roger Sterling and Joan Holloway, who is perhaps the only character who could ever out-Barbie Barbie. agencyspy says the set won’t come equipped with cigarettes or booze; I just want to know if, well, Don and Roger are more complete than Ken.

Back in Black

Commercials that star dead celebrities are by definition, unseemly, but despite this, a 2006 spot for the Gap, which borrowed an Audrey Hepburn number from the movie Funny Face, was charming, especially when compared to a Dirt Devil ad that same year. (No one should have ever been allowed to manipulate the eternally graceful yet long-gone Fred Astaire into dancing with a vacuum cleaner.)
The Gap’s  “Keep It Simple” spot featured Ms. Hepburn dancing in skinny pants and a turtleneck, and it made a digital transition from a jazz-filled Paris club to a plain, studio setting with a blast of ACDC’s Back in Black.
The 1957 scene amply represented simplicity and pants to a modern audience, and like the Gap, I’d also found it inspiring — not to make a debatable TV spot, but to dress and live in a less complex manner, a notion I recently revisited this notion in a blogpost for MyShape.com. (I’ve been hiding out in black garb since the 1980s.) But regardless of your stance on dead celebrities hawking products (a mini-trend that, thankfully, seems to have waned) or on black as a wardrobe aesthetic, or if you just need a good dose of joy, song and imagined-Paris in your life, I recommend Funny Face.

Blue Skies, Oscar Gold

During the past few days, there have been so many helicopters flying around the neighborhood that I felt nostalgic for my old home in Santa Ana. Perhaps inspired by a mix of intermittent rain, the promise of spring and the noisy skies overhead, the red carpet of the 2010 Academy Awards seemed to feature a lot of blue and lavender, infused with subtle silvers and creamy white tones.

Lovely, smart, interesting, memorable, not-embarrassing:

Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dries Van Noten

Robert Downey, Jr., blue glasses, blue bow tie, sneakers

Rachel McAdams, Elie Saab Haute Couture

Nicole Ritchie, Reem Acra

Diane Kruger, Chanel: I want to be in love with this dress, since it’s what I’d choose in my imagine life as a ceremony attendee.

Sarah Jessica Parker, Chanel: aside from her role in Sex in the City, I've never been fan of SJP. So what’s wrong with this look? The actress? Or the dress itself?

What were they thinking?

Charlize Theron, Dior: from the side, this dress looks like a stunner. From the front, it’s a surprise, and not the good kind. 

Zoe Saldana, Givenchy: when did the French couture house put Beyonce's mother in charge of design?

Gabourey Sidibe, Marchesa: lovely dress, but the sausage curl hair looks like it will take on a life of its own.