Dear Sir or Madam

The new Wooooo is so good. Great interviews with great people. Great design (by Andre Wiesmayr) in a handy paperback book format. Here are some samples:






You have to get it.
It's $10 including shipping and worth every penny.

I refuse to call this post "Crocodile Rock"but I can't think of another title.

Emily and I were surprised and delighted to walk into the opening party for the brand spanking new Crocodile last night and find Robyn Hitchcock on stage with Bill Rieflin, Scott McCaughey, and former Croc owner Peter Buck. It was a perfect inaugural performance for the impeccably remodeled space, which feels much bigger but maintains its intimacy very nicely with a well-placed bar and delicious Via Tribunali pizza in the kitchen. We stayed to see The Quiet Ones (pictured…sort of), who I have been wanting to see for a long time, and then had to break out, but I'm way excited to see more shows there (Destroyer on May 6th, for example). Big congratulations to Kerri, Roy, and the rest of the crew.

Your Weekly Mr. Littlejeans

Don't let the cuteness fool you – he's a cold-blooded killer.

New Wooooo!

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...with Agyness Dean on the covers and an interview inside by Wooooo mastermind Jason Crombie. Tons more great interviews (all geniusly copy edited by Emily and me…unlike this post).

Go here for order info.

Buy two and put one in plastic. Get a t-shirt while you're at it.

Chronicles and Other Scenes

This looks interesting too. Wandering bohemian Michel Auder has videotaped pretty much the entire past forty years of his life, including time spent hanging around with his ex-wife Viva and the rest of the Warhol crew, and with his other ex-wife Cindy Sherman. 5000 hours worth of footage has been distilled into a new feature film entitled, well, The Feature.



There's a review in The New York Times today and you can see more Michel Auder stuff here.

Slipping Away

This new movie, co-written by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida and directed by Sam Mendes, has a lot of potential (obligatory inclusion of the overrated and annoying Maggie Gyllenhall notwithstanding).



I can already see it filed right between the [selective] Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson wings of our burgeoning little video library.

Via the always captivating TBTL.

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Update: after I saw the movie I felt compelled to write this.

Fine Print

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Drew Christie: Seattle City Hall 1882

I've been working on a fun project recently with Light in the Attic Records, and Seattle-based artist Drew Christie did a bunch of illustrations for it. I'll reveal that whole thing pretty soon, but in the mean time I wanted to post up some of Drew's other work – these are all linoleum cuts printed on old book pages.

Rahm Emanuel's War Chest

Mending Torn Net (from a series of images of old time Ballard)

The Birth of the KGB

Klezmer!

I really like the one above in particular: A Dispute Arises at the Thunderbird Logging Camp. You can feel tension in the stances of the two men and the way the front guy is clenching his fists. The guy in the back looks like he's more hesitant to get into it with whoever the wrongdoer is, but he's gonna back up the front guy regardless.

Go check out Drew Christie's blog, Democracy for the Cartoons, for much more.

Sense and Sensibility

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Carine Roitfeld photographed by Hedi Slimane.
Photo courtesy of New York magazine.

There are few people in the world whose personal flavor I admire (or career I envy) more than that of Carine Roitfeld, French Vogue's Editor-in-Chief. Roitfeld is a former stylist and muse to Tom Ford during his time at Gucci, and her sensibility informs a much edgier and better-designed version of the fashion rag presided over by her American counterpart, Anna Wintour (gleefully skewered by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada). Being an unabashed fan of both her substance and style, I am looking forward to seeing Roitfeld featured in the upcoming installment of CNN's Revealed, which follows her during the recent fashion weeks in New York and Paris. Here's a quick preview:



The full show premieres this Wednesday, March 18 at 4:30 a.m. EDT (with a first encore presentation the same day at 1:30 p.m. EDT). Be sure to tune in to what promises to be a fascinating and entertaining profile. Like just about everything she does, it seems, it's a must-see.

Carine at 19, looking like a California girl. Courtesy lefashion and Teen Vogue. You can check out more current photos at jakandjil.com, here.

My Own Beliefs are In My Song

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Last Thursday night, Emily and I met up with our friends Spyridon and Lisa at Northwest Film Forum to check out the latest edition of Soul Nite. In addition to dynamite clips of Ike & Tina Turner, Sam & Dave, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and Stevie Wonder, founder and host Peter Lucas screened a tightly curated selection of Sly & the Family Stone footage in celebration of Sly's birthday. They set up a bar in the movie theater, served birthday cake, and had a DJ spinning Sly-inspired cuts from the year 1969 (since the evening was also part of 69, NW Film Forum's ongoing exploration of films from that year, forty years later). It should come as no surprise that Kerri was there chicing up the place, and we were also lucky to catch up with Spyridon's cousin Shawn, who used to have a record store on Vashon Island and is himself no slouch in the music knowledge department.

Here's a very low-quality video of one of the Sly clips they showed:



Going into the night, that's kind of what I was expecting – that they would show some soul videos, and that it would be entertaining to watch them with friends in a theater, but otherwise not too different than watching on YouTube. I could not have been more wrong – seeing these performers on the big screen was totally overwhelming. I'm not saying it was like actually being there and watching live performances, but something about being in the theater with the lights off, and the focus that provides, made it feel like discovering soul music all over again, or at least in a new way. It makes it somewhat possible to put yourself in the mindspace of someone watching Sly Stone, at the end of the 1960s, tell the audience "Don't hate the black. Don't hate the white. If you get bitten, just hate the bite." Folks know "Everyday People" from Toyota commercials, but at the time it was revolutionary as it made its way out to mainstream America. It expresses love and complex emotion in such a way that you could only call it Soul music. And it's also just fun as hell to watch the crowd go nuts as the Family Stone does their thing.

The next one is May 13th for Stevie Wonder's birthday...can't wait.

Have a Seat

Speaking of art that embodies its time, I visited Joey Veltkamp's excellent blog, Best Of recently and saw this piece by Northwest-based artist Drew Daly (created by sanding down a wooden chair to the point just short of disintegration/collapse). Though I gather that this wasn't necessarily the artist's intention, it struck me as a perfect articulation of the uneasiness about present and future that's in the air right now:

Drew Daly, Subject: Chair (photo via Best Of)

Read Joey Veltkamp's terrific interview with Daly, and see more photos of Daly's work, here. The interview was originally published in the new issue of La Especial Norte, also highly recommended reading. Seattleites – or anyone passing through – can pick up their free copy at various art venues around the city, including Howard House, James Harris Gallery, SOIL, and Lawrimore Project.

Your Weekly Mr. Littlejeans

Such a poseur.

Put Up or Shut Up

I mean, it's no "f*ck mountain" or anything, but this is funny enough to make me look forward to the new show Sit Down and Shut Up…



…and even more forward to the Arrested Development movie.

Via TBTL.

I love it when a plan comes together.

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Yesterday marked the launch of The Second Pass, a website I've been working on for a few months. Founder and editor John Williams (a good friend of mine who you may know from his blog, A Special Way of Being Afraid) has enlisted an impressive group of contributors to discuss books, both new and old – the idea being that while the web may have had a hand in this slow death of print we keep hearing about, it has also made it easier than ever to dig up out-of-print editions and obscure authors that deserve another look. There are many worthwhile book review websites out there, but I think this unique point of view makes The Second Pass an interesting addition to the mix. I've really enjoyed designing the site and I don't mind saying that I'm proud of the way it turned out. Go have a look right now, and tell all your friends.

Pas de Deux

A more comprehensive Paris Fashion Week round-up is forthcoming, but in the meantime here are some highlights from two shows, both of which I thought came across as fully realized collections with strong and consistent points of view: Dries Van Noten and Emanuel Ungaro. Dries sent out classic and modest pieces in beautiful prints and hues. They somehow look perfectly suited to the here and now.

Dries Van Noten

Dries Van Noten

Dries Van Noten

Esteban Cortazar, a relatively new designer for the Ungaro line, also delivered with lots of interest and a sense of fun that still managed to look in step with the more sober times.

Emanuel Ungaro

Emanuel Ungaro

More at style.com.

Dark Matter

Whatever you think of Gareth Pugh (to me he's a little severe, but I'm always interested to see what he'll do next) this video presentation of his FW09 collection, in collaboration with filmmaker Ruth Hogben, is impressive. Check it out at SHOWstudio.

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My Girl Stella

Anyone who has ever had a conversation with me about fashion is also likely to know that I am a huge fan of Stella McCartney, and I've been anxiously awaiting her show since Paris Fashion Week began last week. Although there were some elements that I wasn't crazy about (too much lace for my taste, for one), I thought it was a strong collection, and the good parts (coats, pants, jackets, and some great dresses) appear to be Stella through and through – simple lines that are simultaneously strong and relaxed, and an uncomplicated use of fabrics that telegraphs the stylish life pared down to its essentials. Stella doesn't consistently try to push her way into uncharted waters the way some designers do – notwithstanding that I'd pin the current jumpsuit craze squarely on her shoulders – but to me even the established trends often look better on her runway. She manages to inject an indefinable freshness that makes her clothes look just a little ahead of the curve. Maybe it's in the genes. Some highlights below (click to enlarge and see the whole show at style.com):

Publish My Love

Check it: my man Jeff just designed this 60-page zine for photographer Noah Kalina.

Looks dope, can't wait to get my copy.


Get more info and order it at kalinamagazine.com

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Unrelated:
Rogue Wave Publish My Love mp3 (via Sub Pop)
When you start blogging they don't tell you (you know, they...They don't tell you) that the hardest part is coming up with clever titles.

Wild Style

There are advantages to being so sick that you can barely move. If I had been able to get off the couch Friday night, we would have missed an encore showing of Alone In the Wilderness on KCTS (the local PBS station) – Dick Proenneke's self-made documentary of his experiences building a log cabin by hand and exploring the natural environment of Twin Lakes, Alaska.

Using a hand-cranked 16mm Bolex camera, Proenneke carefully recorded the process of building the cabin and all the details that go along with it (including a stone fireplace, a thatched roof, wooden door hinges and a clever lock mechanism to keep bears out, an outhouse, a functional refrigerator in the ground, and much more). He demonstrates a truly amazing frontier craftsmanship that you don't see much of today; just as rewarding are Proenneke's beautiful shots of the flora, fauna, and spectacular scenery around him and his reverent but matter-of-fact take on it all.

I don't think it really does the movie full justice, but here's a clip if you're curious:



My brother first introduced me to Alone In the Wilderness, and Proenneke's skills, earned through his experience as a carpenter in the Navy during WWII, make me think of our own grandpa's experiences as a Navy Sea Bee and homesteader in Alaska.

Order the DVD and get more info at dickproenneke.com
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Party On (Milan Wrap-Up Pt. 2)

Paris Fashion Week has been in full swing since last week, and I'm way behind, so here are just a few quick looks from the rest of the Milan shows. There was a lot of what I always expect from the Italian collections – overt glamour, shine, and plenty of sex appeal. Click to enlarge:

Pucci; architectural details at Gianfranco Ferre.

Lots of volume at Iceberg and Moschino.

The spirit of Tom Ford stalked the runway at Gucci.

Old-school Italian elegance at Ferragamo.

Fendi.

Etro keeps things easy.

Relaxed basics at Burberry Prorsum.

Unmistakable luxe at Bottega Veneta.

Little details add up at Alessandro Dell'Aqua.

Albino.

Looking for the dance floor at Versace.

More at style.com.