Exquisite Corpses:Fernando Vicente

Exquisitely disturbing.......Fashionably Grotesque....Its Harpers Bazaar meet Hellraiser!!!!! Fernando Vicente's illustrations are to horrifyingly Lovely to just choose a few.....So please enjoy...

XOXO

http://www.fernandovicente.es/

I Feel Like a Diva Made to Wait in the Lobby:an Ode to Bell Hollow

....funny how things happen.....

i think it was the second day of "Drop Dead" and Gina andJ maes were seeing some horrible Psychobilly band and I was exhausted and just about over it...then i remembered....there was some band with an interesting name playing...not the usual "goth" name....no overused adjectives or religious or anti religious rhetoric...but something cool and simple....So I wandered in to see them...and then everything changed for me........

Bell Hollow came at an amazing time in life for me...i had just lost ALOT of weight...over 100 pounds and was feeling amazing...I reunited with aforementioned friends Gina&James after being separated for years...and I started going out and dancing again...things were amazing and there may have even been some boys involved!!!! So after that first night I became obsessed with Bell Hollow...they were a magical mixture of everything that i loved...the music...the lyrics...and the voice...it felt like soft velvet heaven...somehow so SEXUAL...and also innocent and loving at the same time....they drew me in and i became intoxicated with them....and amazingly they were a band that were even BETTER live....almost hypnotizingly so.....So......I was at the front of every show...dancing and singing....meeting new friends and even eventually meeting the band and getting to know the guys behind the music....

Bell Hollow were like nothing i ever heard before...i mean sure you could make flippant comparisons to other bands but really they were something else altogether...they are one of those bands that when i close my eyes I'm transported...away.....they made me feel alive and sad...like falling in love and like devouring a lover...i wanted to stay warm in bed with them wrapped up in soft white sheets...They made you feel like you were walking in the rain and softly crying.....They made me feel alive.....They make me feel like a teenager...so lost in hope and overcome by romance.....and they still do....They may be gone but the music is forever...and they are still one of my favorite groups ever....

Thanks guys for all the magic you put back into my life...the hope you gave me...the tears you helped bring out and the desire you stirred in me!!! Greg,Christopher,Todd,and Nick......I'm eternally grateful to you all!!

XOXO

"Dirty little mind, me and you
And you know I’m messed up too
I’ll be lonely forever if you run out on me"

"Delicious sadness
She likes to wash it down with wine
The kind that comes in boxes"

"Find out the reason I’ve got fire for you"

"In my bed your ankle sets my mind to flight

Hike it up three inches and give me just one sight
In the bazaar today in sheets of ghostly white
When you passed me...perfume, am I wrong or am I right?"

"This land is bloody10,000 eyesCreep up the corner of your face Where every lie’s in lower case"

"What if you look into my eyes?
I’ve thrown out the circle for you

How will you know what to do?
When everyone’s looking at you? "

and one of my favorites .....

"it's the same old song...."

So Grey the Sky.......

i dont know what it was...I remember seeing them in an ad in "Propaganda" magazine way back when...probably at my friend Patricia's house who was the first one I knew to get the magazine...{and the FIRST place I ever saw/heard the word GOTH...... REALLY I mean it WAS pre-internet..REMEMBER?!?!?!?} I suddenly became enamoured with them...well.... with their look initally...it was spooky...but accessible...just 4 kids from Jersey  Gothing their hearts out.....So i searched and searched for their record {again...no Google...no Yahoo...no Ebay}.....Until i finally found it at "It's Only Rock and Roll" on 8th street......it was like I found the Holy Grail......and the music was just what i wanted it to be....dramatic and electronic....spooky and moody....with an a sound similar to the band that their name came from ...{"Screaming for Emaline" by gene Love Jezebel}...but so much more...to me at least.....

They were the first band I kinda became obsessed with to the point of searching down their record...and the first band I would play for people in a ..."Hey have you heard of these guys...???" kind of way....and if I came across their record i would buy it and give it to someone who I liked......or who I knew loved music like I did...they became a Litmus test...for friends...and for other bands that came after.....They were legend....

Then as the internet came I FINALLY was able to procure their mysterious 45 that I had heard about.....{Grey the Sky}.....as well as FINALLY getting to see them in '06 at the "Drop Dead Festival"...So it 

all came full circle...i told the guys how much they meant to me.....and how we found a promo shot in the sleeve with the keyboardists number on it and used to call him back in the day and just hang up for fear of what to say...{I found out it was his HOME number...embarassing...} it was nice to finally meet them...and tell them what they meant to me.....

and I heard them last night at "Salvation" when Patrick spun them and it took me back...and I was 16 again.,..spinning around in my room...dreaming of someplace I could go to really dance with other people...where I could get dressed up and be myself....where I could shut the world out for awhile and just be me.....heh....if i only knew back then......

XOXO

{the article that started it ALL...}

Le Cabinet de Curiosités: 6 Harrison Street, TriBeCa

Led by the suggestion of my friend Patrick upon a chance meeting in the rainy NY streets I ventured into Tribeca...a place where i never usually go...a maze of old NY streets laden with cobblestones and old world charm and new world money.....All to see an exhibit I gleaned was called "Cabinet of Curiosities"...colour me curious......

"Le Cabinet de Curiosités presents work by Marlborough artists Thierry W Despont, Manolo Valdés and the late Claudio Bravo, as well as rare antique furniture from the Steinitz Collection"

Stunning antiques form the 17th and 18th century were combined with an amazing array of artworks...paintings that looked like the BACKS of stretched canvases and knotted scarves....insects and exotic birds made from metal ephemera and mechanical cast offs....and rough hewn wooden sculptures that mimic Old Master silhouettes...The role place felt magical and transported from some other time and place...it felt suspended in time..... not exactly old...not specifically new...could have been Vienna...or Paris.....or a back alley in Rome.....

ll in all a truly beautiful exhibit...and a truly magical NY way that i happened to see it one day before it closed!!! Also 6 Harrison Street was quite a beautiful building in it's own right and i included some photos of it's interior here as well!!!!!

XOXO

http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/galleries/graphics/artists/claudio-bravo/graphics 

http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/galleries/graphics/artists/manolo-valds/graphics

http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/galleries/chelsea/artists/thierry-w-despont

These wooden 'books" below were some of my favorite things in the gallery...so detailed and raw at the same time....

for some more photos check out:

http://hifructose.com/index.php/the-blog/2040-le-cabinet-de-curiosites

Ode to Staple Street

The rain falling feels like whispers against my skin and i feel like i've discovered a secret place covered in secrets and regrets.....a explorer armed with a camera an an imagination as wild as the sky....and i feel out of time...or rather in another time perhaps...it feels so long ago and forgotten...filled with the acrid air of history.....

XOXO