A blog dedicated to the interesting, scandalous, useful and cutting edge in the world of men’s style, fashion and grooming.
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New York has changed a lot in the past thirty years, and though there’s a lot more glass and concrete than there used to be, there are still a few dinosaurs creaking around.
For instance, the Chelsea Hotel. Founded in 1883, the hotel was a favorite of Mark Twain, and in more counter-cultural days was host to Jack Kerouac, Leonard Cohen, Marilyn Monroe and Bob Dylan, gaining notoriety with the stabbing death of Nancy Spungen.
They may seem quaint and horribly rural, but the appeal of the circus has never quite disappeared. And, as Thom Browne recently reminded us, their influence is far from disappearing.
Taschen has just come out with a book that should be the perfect primer if you’re looking to brush up on your clowns. It’s called The Circus, 1870-1950, covering 80 years of traveling entertainment, complete with its own posters, stars and sense of style.
After four solid decades outrunning his public persona, Bob Dylan has settled into a comfortable self-chronicling period, both with increasingly generous live shows and a seemingly never-ending Bootleg Series. Lucky for us, he’s feeling generous with that too: He’s letting NPR stream the latest release for free from their website before the record drops next Tuesday.
It’s called Tell Tale Signs, and covers outtakes from his most recent creative burst, from Oh Mercy to Modern Times, or 1989 to present. It’s not the best of the series—that honor goes to either the 1964 or 1975 live recordings—but the piano demo of “Dignity” and the bluesier version of “Mississippi” are both worth the price of admission. And it’s always nice to hear from an old friend.
The Watchmen movie was never going to be a fan favorite, but our current feelings about it can be expressed through the following tidbit of news, courtesy of our friends at Complex: For the closing credits, emo kids My Chemical Romance have recorded a cover of Bob Dylan’s eleven-minute opus “Desolation Row.”
Please please please no.
This is everything that’s wrong with the Watchmen project and Hollywood in general. Start with a genuinely interesting, prickly subject matter, then churn out an “update” with a stylistic overhaul, a dumbstruck, glib reverence, and almost none of the sinister ambiguity of the original. Isn’t there some way we can use the credit crisis to stop all of this?
Basement Tapes: The lost Johnny Cash/Bob Dylan album, courtesy of your techno-libertarian friends at BoingBoing. [Boing Boing]
The Master Speaks: A true trad weighs in on the slipper craze. [A Suitable Wardrobe]
Yoo Hoo: An interview with Hyden Yoo, including his take on being the only designer to have eaten bugs to get where he is. [Valet Mag]
Glory Days: Esquire sidles up to the bar, orders a double bourbon, and reminisces about the good old days…by reprinting its seven best stories, including entries from Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, and Gay Talese. [Esquire]
