You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘A Kitty Bawler Production’ category.
I’m sorry it’s taken so long to write. There is something missing. It’s ME. I’ve been gone too long. Sitting on the story. Bored. Annoyed . Bored again. Waiting for the moment to present itself. The magic “Source” promised to reveal the cinematic story of your demise. Mr X.
Last August, I read about your sign missing. Stolen! Genius and funny too. I emailed your “band of thieves.” And, your story, promised to me for months in a clean, photoshopped package, isn’t coming. Never was. And so the moment, ever fleeting, won’t either. It never will. And, like the girls (guilty!) do these days, I favor closure.
Beatrice, you were used. Gawker NAILED you on all points. You were a contender. At the time, you probably didn’t care. Plus, you were just a sign. Still, let’s recap the rise and fall (albeit brief)…shall we? Let’s relive your Vertigo belltower moment. You were white hot!
Beatrice: Ugh, thanks for making your name trendy for the next generation of small children. What happened? You go and get yourself CLOSED! SHUTTERED! PADLOCKED! Those people didn’t take good care of you. Used you. If only you had extended your arms to neighbors. Really, being to nice people is the way to go these days. It really is.
OH BOY…that fateful night, you were stripped from your holy post. Why didn’t I think of that Beatrice? I wake up and find you alive and well….not in some infested dumpster. You were alive! Someone was holding you. Cradling. Loving. And not Silence of the Lambs way. You weren’t in some dark hole with a poodle and water bucket. Amazing, you looked really good in the comfort of someone’s well-organized apartment. Graphic designer? DJ? Art collector? Oh well, fantastic stereo equipment…you almost looked happy.
Still, I decided you should at least tell be able to share your story. Blame me! Like a mother, I was worried about you, Beatrice. You needed to talk. Past is Present!
Beatrice, most of them won’t care. Your demise was a celebration to many. Those patrons; nocturnal, pale, pretentious blood sucking things…A.R.E. kidding me? Ah, yes, we are talking about you the sign, not the people. Bea! You aren’t so missed, especially by those pesky, uptight neighbors. They hated you! Outside was cold and dark. Trash and rats. Don’t you remember someone keying the 666? Ouch. And some lame white marker doodles? Sorry you didn’t get tagged with legit graffiti. Someone should have stolen the neon sign…or those nice green evergreens (easily replanted).
Ding! We’ve all high-fived the doorman. Steve! Mike! But, oh, how your insider friends miss you, dear Beatrice, enough to steal your mighty sign (shame on the Tapas joint supposedly opening last year for not stationing at least two security guards at the door) and sell you down the river.
Here is the thing. Here is what I think. And yes, I’m a small market little girl, but Beatrice, I came after you. Before you were you. You were a sign on a small block in the West Village of New York City…an island. Now you are gone and it’s was an INSIDER job. Let’s have our closure.
Really, being to nice people is the way to go these days. It really is.
Sometimes, I wish I didn’t care so much about things, Bea. Still, I insisted. Yeah. We’ll give you the story. ”We are moving the sign to a safer place…” as if we’re in an X File episode. My theories? Vampires? Chanel models? An angry girlfriend who wants her 2K, cash preferably upfront. Get the story. Some people might think it’s interesting in a City where nothing interesting happens anymore. Someone might care. I miss your fresh roses in your tiled bathroom, your ultra low ceilings, the American flag located just behind th DJ booth, smoking in the boys room style, Sinatra playing when it was time to go, and if you patrons could muster eating after the skating rink, a snack at The Corner Bistro.
Bea, this is why you were stolen:
I wanted a piece of history, I wanted people to say, “why didn’t I think of that” I wanted to sell it to pay rent. I wanted people to see that era was OVER. I wanted people to laugh at the foolish and empty amount of time that they rubbed elbows in that den of iniquity. I had cased the joint for a while checking all the angles like it was Fort Knox or something. I was most afraid of being caught walking around the West Village with it all casual and stuff. I sat and rapped out with the guy living right above it, I was like, Yo! if I lived there three years ago I would be dead today, and told him I was planning on taking the signs. I went to ”DR” and bought a ladies screwdriver with a pink floral pattern, it was a warm dusky pre-rain kind of day. I sat at the restaurant next door and ordered a coke and some sliders, I kept going out for a cigarette and loosening the screws one at a time. When they were pried free I smiled, hid them there… then paid my bill next door and made off like a thief in the night. Which is what I was. But I was taking what I believed was mine anyway, it was just chilling in the public domain, useless. Mocking me, it had to go.
I saw those documents; on Tumblr. Oh wait, where did those pictures go?
Damn, I wish this story was more radical. But it’s not.
Dear Beatrice, catharis immediately sums up the period after you.
In the end, it seems my friends, we have a bit of a PR situation on our hands. You see, everyone is awake in a dream. So we have this Jimbo with this Jimbo who wants to make the headlines and revamp the career.
A=A=A.
We have another Jimbo in Chanel suits (make it blue, please) making certain the Save the T-shirts look okay and conducting her posse. We have the haters and the paranoid (on every corner coming to a theatre near you).
Dear Mr X:
No wonder journalism is a goner sans the Wiki Leaks folks. Tough to score a source. I get it, don’t hate the playa hate the game. But don’t you play to win the game? I mean, sheeeettttt….I can’t even break the lamest West Village story in poor Beatrice’s brief history. Now I know why peeps aren’t “Winning….” I won’t blow the pots and pans and lids off anymore because the stories aren’t really stories. There is no sensation in senstationalism.
The sign isn’t missing aNYmore. It’s in someone’s living room. I hope they enjoy it. They can pass it on to their kids and their kids kids’ and talk about Connecticut and being a WASP and living the “high” life in New York in what…2008? They can talk about the good times. We’re all going to the same place. You can be cool and act cool and work cool and high five your B stars until New York becomes a C star. You can Twitter, take pictures (black and white), wear dark shades, break into the ole’ joint and relive your red booth world. Be a surfer (EVERYONE surfs in NYC; even the blonde PR chicks), you can eat oysters, drink gourmet coffee and do everything I did under the sun. Keep on keepin’ on. You can sell me down the river, because I’ve already been floated down that way…see, living in New York teaches you how to be tough. But never to care this much. I’m not mad, just bored.
I need to write. I need a day job. I’m tired and have miles to go before I sleep.
The story with this story is there is no story. It’s an inside job. Bah-oring. So with this I wave bye-bye baby…bye-bye Beatrice.
Does this make me feel good? Not really. Catharis immediately sums up the period after you. But, it’s time to put this baby to bed already. I hope you are safe and sound. Sleeping like a baby. Good night.
BRI FOREVER!
- THE END.
(Photos Inside Bea : Mr X)
Friends: If you have NOT picked up your copy of the Selby; now is your chance. It’s a great book filled with quirky folks and pretentious, unreachable people with high chins and little in their cubburds save the booze and whatever is hiding out.
As you know there is always a handwritten Q/A after a highly stylized photo shoot. It’s a brilliant idea and commercial at that. Ollie shares his intense passion for cologne (heavy on the Lang), his scooter as well as his boots; so he doesn’t Tom Cruise the ladies.
However, I have done some research vis a via Ollie and as you know the book has been out a while (you can pick up your copy at Anthropologie); still a comfort to know Ollie took the time to answer a few questions about his love for Chloë Stevens Sevigny. And “the brother…” what a sweet shout to the Paul.
It’s safe to say, Kitty Bawler is taller than Ollie and has a great looking leather jacket too.
Murrrrayyyyyy ; I understand you are showing signs of life.
Word on the street is …you’re all heart kid.
Turn that heart; upside down. Oh,
Sit boo boo, sit!
Good dog!
xx
“Even in the bedroom I have my camera, I sleep with my camera, I have lunch with my camera,” he said. “I go to dinner with my camera and I’m recording my experience.”
-Ollie Zahm, New York Times
Perhaps the best quote came from OZ (er; friend)…where the Times piece says: “Not all of Mr. Zahm’s supporters, however, are pleased with his latest tack. “I hope when people think about Olivier they consider the whole body of work,” said the veteran New York night-life impresario Paul Sevigny, Chloë’s brother, who maintains a pristine collection of the entire Purple library. He recalls that the magazine used to be filled with discovery — a glorious hodgepodge of fiction, poetry, art and photography by both established and emerging names. “Maybe he’s the man with some sort of master plan, and he’s smarter than the rest of us, but I hope people don’t judge him on his latest magazine.”
and further and further on in the piece OV ends with this:
“It made people realize that I was not just a pervert who wanted a new girl every night and was obsessed by his own celebrity and narcissism,” he said. “It made me realize that I can be more open with the Diary and more complex and really express myself. I’m not just the cliché.”
(image: Purple Diary)
Kitty: Do you know what narcissism means? Perhaps not even in your infinite Frenchness you know.
Acquired Situational Narcissism (ASN), a condition that affects individuals who encounter fame and celebrity.
Narcissism assumes the all good and the all bad. Dr Robert Millman clarifies, “If the bond (mother-child) isn’t strong, the separation goes awry and one has real difficulty recognizing themselves as not all good and not all bad. The all-good mother or the all-bad mother. The all-good self or the all-bad self. And malignant narcissists can love you and they can hate you.” Narcissistic criteria follows a pattern of profound self-involvement, yet the individuals considers themselves constantly to the exclusion of thinking of others. They are more concerned with how they appear than what they feel. Narcissists reside in a world where they are real and other people are puppets or actors on their stage. They fail in their reality and ability to distinguish the actual from the fiction. Millman reveals that “acquired situational” does not mean that a one does not have some elements of early development aberrations. Narcissists often hate their mothers. “They have decided based on that episode or that memory that she’s horrible or not appreciating how brilliant he is,” Millman explains.
Also, I hate to break it to you OV; but New York hasn’t ever been prude. The rest of America, perhaps. But New York fucking CITY. I mean, BRU.
Dear Terry; Ollie’s name should be on the e.vil list. I’m going to pen them a letter tonight.
Note to self: Terry LOVES his mother. It’s all over his diary. And, that homeboy is F U N N Y!
Dear New York, I am French. I am a French photographer. I try to bridge the gap of art and fashion. You understand that, yes? Think of Eyes Wide Shut. The art; those women, the sacrifice. Women wrapped around women sick and sin. One in each other.
Don’t think I’m affected; I wear my sunglasses and take pictures of many hot nude women. It’s my job. I don’t want you to feel (in any way) I borrowed my friend Terry’s idea to start a diary based on my exotic life of travel, pristine sushi, high rent views, designer white jeans, high-class women and aviators. I make a lot of money. I really do.
I’m an artist and a photographer. This is my job. I’ll be fifty soon. Long live Helmut Newton. Long live Terry Richardson. Long Live Casanova. I think it’s important I get in touch with myself and the women I love. I break things. I ruin relationships. I’m self destructive to the sense I can pick myself up again and survive. I like the darkness. I love art; women are pieces of art. Luckily, I never really leave the Standard because I support various parties upstairs with scantily clad lovelies.
Today, I wear a t-shirt and look out onto the vast skyline of New York. My night will start in the same fashion, much like groundhog day, where I can putter around after a shower in the zero privacy room I have. I’m a photographer; I’m a voyeur, yet, it’s important I too face the lens. I try not to shoot in colour; I love the cold greys and shadows. I love the way it elongates me; torso and legs and genitals. Gold bengals, ornamentation, models dolled up and painted like flowers. I will photograph them all. I will make models famous.
Don’t be afraid of me. I love you, New York. You are my muse; forget my broken frames and wilted flowers. Don’t pay attention to how long I’ve been gone from you during my travels around the world when I was trying to forget myself.
I’m back. I’m here. Come find me.
I’m a photographer.
(Photo: Purple Diary)
Kitty Bawler wants to know if Terry or Ollie though of the rabbi Hallow’s Eve disguise. Meow.
The socially suspect Guest of A Guest puts together a New York Magazine like diagram tracing the whereabouts of the Beatrice fallen and there various venues which are filling their pockets with money and douja.
Too bad most of these red rope jammies are completely ge-ner-ic in every sense of the word and lack any personality. Hey, you simply, CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN!
With Love.
Ollie; Philip Wylie had nothing on you when he penned his Generation of Vipers. Now, tell us about your mother.
And when you’ll next be in New York. Don’t call. Write.
xKitty.
(image: Purple Diary)
At The New York Times T Magazine (a silent tear falls) to run the Asked and Answered with Olivier Dahm. It pains too. The dude is so insanely misguided in his answers. I almost punched myself from fatigue. Maybe it’s the pills. Who knows? Read the article yourself (should you have the patience or a very tall glass of hard booze).
Kitty’s favorite Q/A portion plucked from the pages:
Why is sex such an integral part of Purple Magazine?
Sex is a part of every fashion magazine; I’m more direct about it because I embrace it without fear as part of my aesthetic. Being part of the creative world, sex is something that I have to consider, think about, read about and experience in a healthy and natural way, but what I see is the opposite. Sexual freedom is becoming dangerous and almost criminal. In America there are now sexual rehabs, and if you consider sex as an addiction in the same way as drugs or alcohol, you are categorizing it as a dangerous or uncontrollable impulse. As long as violence and abuse are not involved, sex is something completely natural, sophisticated and inspiring. The people who go to sex rehab are not making that decision alone. They are trapped in a system where they have to go to pretend to their family, to their boss or the media (like Tiger Woods), “I’m good now.” But you’re not “good” — you’re just a hypocrite and you want your money back, and you want your wife back, and you are stupid robot, and you play the game but you are not honest because you accept that society decides what’s good or not for you sexually.
Do you ever feel attacked or misunderstood for taking such a liberal stance on sexual freedom in your magazine?
Unfortunately most of the time people think that if you deal with sex you’re bad. I’m not afraid of that and I don’t think it’s bad. I think that we have to protect a certain freedom today especially if we are involved in creative activities. We create because we question the limit of what people think is good or bad. We don’t give a damn about the money we make but more about the intellectual influence we have. And if I thought I had a bad influence on people I would stop and I would become invisible.
KB: Invisible? Really? I mean, R E A L L Y?
Kitty Bawler is annoyed with French people who overstay their welcome in New York. She’s currently working on a tracking device to alert her of Ollie’s world domination plans.
Dear Ollie:
I hope you keep your torso young and buff.
Stay forever young.
To your special day.
Now I know you like roses too. And the white jeans.
If you were in New York, I would treat you to Omen.
X Kitty Bawler.
Good god, we can all be happy Fashion Week is over, however, we’re still leftover with the remnants. Or the shards of Paul and Nur. The new dynamic duo (can I get a bumps, bumps?) talking about Fashion Week.
Paul, you have a dirty mouth and you like it. And, while I hate to “blow” the entire piece, Grubstreet rocks the best personal interview with Paul Sevs and Nur Khan I’ve read in years. These two, they’re like a cosmonaut.Take flight boys. This material is so ripe it’s crazy.
Kitty Bawler (KB) responds in blood red.
How’s your New York Fashion Week been?
PS: Hell week. I’m just trying to fucking make it through. It’s great for spaces, but Fashion Week is a necessary evil. [Laughs.] I used to enjoy Helmut Lang shows in the nineties, but he’s not there anymore. I liked Fashion Week when I was new to it, I guess.
NK: I haven’t gone to a single show yet.
KB: Paul, are you wearing tweed?
Yeah, Nur. Straight, bru.
So, do you think this space is a deviation from past projects or are you building a consistent Sevigny-Khan vibe?
NK: This has kind of a Sway in the nineties vibe. But there’s been a void for this in New York for so long. It’s just like everyone here is trying to outdo each other with money and build a better, bigger, strong place. But at the end of the day, it’s about the essence of the space and the people there; that’s what makes it fun.
KB: Paul, you were spinning at Sway a mere five years ago. Lest you forget where you came from.
Do you want people to actually be having sex and doing drugs here? Seems that way from the interior design.
PS: The sex theme isn’t permanent; we’re going to change the interior quarterly. But as opposed to something with a chi-chi-er artist, we’ve got a down and dirty theme at the moment. It’s the opposite of the times. There were spaces in the seventies — Max’s, CB’s — they weren’t glamorous, they were just fun. New York City wasn’t all about supermarkets and retail outlets, and that’s what hotels here are kind of turning into. We want people to get laid in the bathroom.
KB: Um, Paul. Not glamarous? Are you out of your mind? They were super sexy. This was a movement. This was New York. People were getting laid; you weren’t because you hadn’t left Connecticut or you were still rocking the Charleston sailing team.
You are turning into a hotel, Paul.
Do you think peoples’ behavior at parties is more prude now?
PS: Oh, for sure.
NK: There used to be an actual uptown and downtown, but now it’s more homogenized.
KB: (is utterly speechless).
Is Brooklyn versus Manhattan today what uptown versus downtown used to be?
NK: Downtown kids got higher rents and they’re all in Williamsburg now and we kind of lost them. We lost a lot of artistic people, and those are the people who make things happen.
PS: This space isn’t about the person who can roll into town from L.A. with a black card and afford an $18 cocktail. That’s not who we’re trying to attract.
KB: Wiliamsburg? A black card? Who you boyz rolling with? Are you insane man? Are you both insane? Christ.
But how much is a cocktail going to be on a regular night?
NK: I don’t know, maybe ten dollars.
PS: There’s going to be a Jägermeister machine, too.
KB: Will you bring in the Jägermeister girls too; with their whistles? They will wet your whistles.
Are there any Manhattan venues you like right now?
PS: I like Motor City. I like Lit.
KB: Again, you’ve been rocking Lit since your DJ’ing days ditto the A.R.E Casio gig; probably when you were hitting up the Escalade.
Would you open a space in Brooklyn?
NK I’m looking at a space out there. It’s a really great location. I’d love to open a space in Williamsburg. But it’s about the space, and we need to both get out and see it.
PS: The Brooklyn scene is great and young and hip. People are interested in actually fun things. We’re going to try and do Sunday matinees here to draw some of that crowd in. But it’s not dead in Manhattan. There are certainly some holdouts. There are things going on. I moved here a long time ago, and I love the East Side, still. You know, if Varvatos had saved CBGB’s and put his boutique in the fucking basement, he’d be a hero right now. So this is one of the last spots left in town with real history to it. Everyone has a story from Don Hill’s.
KB: Paul, you are my hero. You are New York’s nightlife hero. I bet you wear Varvotos.
You sound a bit bummed about Manhattan changing in this direction.
NK: I honestly feel obliged to change it. This is the direct opposite of the Manhattan luxury-hotel scene. Things have gone one way for so long; we want to go in completely the opposite direction. Just old school, downtown, gritty New York.
PS: We’re not fucking packing up and moving to L.A.
KB: You would be great in L.A. Paul and you could see Chloe more. It’s true.
Do you think this place will attract a different crowd than Beatrice, though?
PS: I hope so. I’m sick of those Beatrice fuckers.
KB: Yeah you are. Those “fuckers” who made you. What is it…don’t bite the hand that feeds you? Dude. Mary Kate would not be down with that. And, where is that signage? You know you want that shit back.
Kitty Bawler dreams in black and white. She’s doesn’t care what you think. Swear.
(photo: Patrick McMullen)
Iggy, man, I get it.
You want to relive those CBGB years. I know, you must. It’s rock and roll; and that is what you and the Stooges perform.
But letting yourself in the company of the Yeah, Yeah (Who’s). And now, Paul has given you a haven, the “new” Don Hills and added hip things and fashion things from his sisters posse. You perform for your Raybaned imitators and rock wanna be’s. But it aids your youth serum. Adding to the mixture of mayhem was Terry and Terry’s Diary on tap to get Jared Leto and yes, Chloe. I’m simply too tired to prop out these diaries when they insist on posting the same of the same of the same. Ollie and Ollie’s Purple Diary didn’t appear to be on tap; or perhaps his lens was broken. Or Paul was taking pictures. Who knows? But there’s a lovely new snap of Ollie rocking it nude in the shower…again. Same room. Same drill. Same white jeans.
Kitty Bawler prefers Blue Ribbon Sushi over Omen.
(photo via Vogue and the lens of Rachel Chandler)
Phew. Well, thank god.
After his brilliant international travels, Ollie is back, in New York.
Ditto Terry who landed sometime last week.
What does this all mean?
Chic topless parties at the Standard, cheap tight wad photos of Ollie packing heat in jeans, lots of celebrities and fashion maniacs. Drugs, sex and rock and roll.
Boys; we ANXIOUSLY await your fashion week festivities and red rope parties.
We cannot wait to see Paul in his new spread. How fabulous!
Yes, He’s Back…Or As Caroline might say about the chosen, collective few…
(picture via: Puple Diary)
Kitty Bawler dreams in black and white. She’s doesn’t care what you think. Swear.
