Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Really enjoyed the Schiaparelli and Prada show "Impossible Conversations" at the Met yesterday. Civilized, subversive, intelligent. I liked it much more than the over-the-top spectacle of last year's Alexander McQueen. The Met's Spring 2012 Costume Institute exhibition, Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations , explores the striking affinities between Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada, two Italian designers from different eras. Inspired by Miguel Covarrubias's "Impossible Interviews" for Vanity Fair in the 1930s, the exhibition features orchestrated conversations between these iconic women to suggest new readings of their most innovative work. Iconic ensembles are presented with videos of simulated conversations between Schiaparelli and Prada directed by Baz Luhrmann, focusing on how both women explore similar themes in their work through very different approaches. The show was divided into seven themes: "Waist Up/Waist Down," ...

from Rebecca Mead's essay (TNY, Sep 1, 2008) on Santiago Calatrava: The first completed Calatrava skyscraper, the Turning Torso tower, in Malmo, Sweden, which is fifty-four stories high and twists through ninety degrees, was derived from a sculpture that Calatrava first made in 1985, and this, in turn was prompted by his sketches of the human spine. . . . Calatrava's bridges, for which he initially earned his fame, often evoke the shapes of lithe human forms, bending or lunging with Olympian vigor. * More recently, he built a library for the University of Zurich's law school--an ovoid structure topped with a glass oculus--that fits snugly within the courtyard of the school's existing hundred-year-old building. A visitor standing inside the splendid skylit atrium will see no books or students; the workspaces are hidden behind five levels of pearwood-clad balconies, as if the library were a beehive in which all honey-producing activity had been cunningly concealed. The oc...

Had dim sum in Gold Mountain in Chinatown late morning, in one of those huge Chinese banquet halls, packed with tables, and tram-lined by steel trolleys of food. The dim sum was tasty and sturdy. I am tempted to say that it's better than anything I've tasted in NYC Chinatown, though that may just be my vacation mood. The restaurant was at the top of Grant Avenue, and this location brought to mind a song from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Flower Drum Song" called, yes, "Grant Avenue": western street with eastern manners, Tall pagodas and golden banners Throw their shadows through the lantern glow. You can shop for precious jade or teakwood tables or silk brocade Or see a bold and brassy night club show, On the most exciting thoroughfare I know. We call it Grant Avenue, San Francisco, California, U.S.A. Looks down from Chinatown Over a foggy bay. You travel there in a trolley, In a trolley up you climb, Dong! Dong! You're in Hong Kong, Having yourse...