Halloweekend

Ah, all hallow's eve. Also known as Halloween or The One Night A Year Girls Can Dress Like Not-So Classy Ladies And Get Away With It. I'm not a huge fan of chicks wearing a bra and panties and some fabric ears, deeming themselves bunnies. I find that the best way to celebrate this secular tradition is either to go all out or, if you don't have the time, go safe or funny. Never go skanky. It's not cute and being a drunken mess clad in a short skirt, glasses and tie because you are a "Naughty Teacher" doesn't scream "treat me like a lady!" My friend Numa, above, went for all-out AND funny. I think he looked absolutely phenomenal as Karl Lagerfeld - he even had cut-off leather gloves and plenty of sparkly rings to boot. I think, more importantly, what really made his costume a hit was the fact that he was in character all evening. I recall someone bumping into him by accident, to which he responded calmly and simply: "That was NOT Chanel". I, on the other hand, decided this year to go for a cute and feminine - but NOT skankoween-y - look: Aphrodite. She is the Goddess of Love and was born when Cronus cut off Ouranos' genitals and threw them into the sea (thanks, Wikipedia). Therefore, not only is she beautiful, but she is also bad-ass. I DIY-ed the toga-look with the help of an old sheet, some gold ribbon and my mother's sewing skillz. They're so good they get a "z". Draped across one shoulder and criss-crossed around the waist with the ribbon, plus more glitter than I've worn since the sixth grade school dances, I thought I was pretty convincing.

In NYC, people are creative and I mean it. I was in the subway with the ENTIRE Sesame Street gang - Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster (with a box of cookies of course) and Oscar amongst others - and saw about four thousand Michael Jackson reincarnations. I absolutely loved each Kate Gosselin imitation (check out the fastest selling wig this year here) and saw several hot messes clad in Lady Gaga's signature blonde and leather.

Halloween was overall amazing and I was lucky enough to not have been somewhere where the majority of young, respectable, educated and beautiful women are dressed as hookers. My ONLY disappointment was that I didn't see even one Green Man (see him dance here!) from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Stairz

As promised, here is my tidbit about stairs. I've put them down in my memo-book as one of the requirements in my dream-loft; preferably spiral, but now that I've done the research and seen the wide variety of possibilities, I am stumped. Some are practical, some are beautiful and some are downright weird. FYI: stairs consist mainly of a tread (the part you step on) and a riser (the vertical part).

Check these babies out:

This graffiti trompe-l'oeil is dope - I'd love to see it in person; it must be oddly unrecognizable at a different angle.

I'm going to start with the Apple store stairs because I find them to be phenomenal - they're clearly perfectly engineered and are consistent with the overall Apple aesthetic - beautifully simplistic with a modern flare.

These stairs are confusing to me but I find the fact that they float very trippy - if two people went up at the same time, would they meet at the cross-section? The dynamics of this one make me a little bit dizzy.

I find these floating stairs absolutely amazing - although I wonder how much weight they can take - I'd need a serious installation guarantee before ordering these babies.

These are wicked - if only I were a skateboarder and didn't look like a total poser with these in my apartment.

I'm not sure how these wibble-wobble, crooked stairs work, but they must make a game of Mouse Trap oddly realistic.

Simple and modern... leading to a MEZZANINE! Also, the photographer's lighting doesn't hurt.

THE PRACTICAL, MULTI-USE SERIES:

I love the idea of a reading nook, but I think I prefer the idea of a reading staircase.

Wonderfully practical - although the open-organization might be too difficult for me to keep up.

The ability to hide clutter where no one will ever know it's literally right under their nose... or feet.

Another great multi-use set of stairs.

Wholly unnecessary? I think not - every pet needs help getting onto his or her private leather seating accommodations!

Requirements

I used to drive by this huge run down building that had enormous windows and overall amazing potential. I remember asking myself why I didn't have a billion dollars to buy, renovate and rent out (slash live in) it. Finally, however, someone slightly more financially adept stole my plan and has created quite the impressive location. It is now called The Banknote (check out thebanknotenyc.com for more), appropriately enough, as I am sure you will need more than a couple of those to rent in the building.

It's truly stunning, though, and I am putting it down as part of the requirements for where I want to live when I get an amazing loft. Other requirements include:

- a mezzanine (not the little baby ones, a giant one, where I could potentially put some sort of game room or a bedroom)

- a spiral staircase (preferably made of glass, like the ones at the Apple store (see future post about stairs) and very big because the small ones tend to make me dizzy)

- giant windows (I'm talking uber-big, as in obnoxiously large windows, I want them to take up the whole wall)

- a great view (perhaps something like this:)

After I went to the Banknote's website, I proceeded to check out other virtual Manhattan lofts and ended up on manhattanlofts.com, a website that made me feel very poor. One of the more impressive apartments, at only $2 990 000, looks like this:

No big deal.

Teleph-oh-no

Friend Sam next to the traditional Chinatown pay phones

This one is mostly interesting because we were in Boston, and people here don't seem to like New Yorkers very much (it must be a Red Sox/Yankee thing)

Lately, I've been noticing some very stylish phone booths. My weekend in Boston contributed two specifically interesting ones to my phone booth repertoire, which made me want to write about pay phones in general. I mean, why would you need to look good for the person who you are calling, when you can look fabulous right there in the booth? With the advent of the cell phone, phone booths and pay phones are no longer being used, but at least we still have their aesthetic and some great artists taking advantage of that recycled tabula rasa. Benoit Deseille and Benedetto Bufalino created the Aquarium Phone Booth as part of the Lyon Light Festival in France, which is imperative since fish need to call their peeps too, right? How else do you think they found Nemo?

Lyon Light Festival

An interesting solution to the aggravating cell phone afficionado

The traditional English phone booth - typical yet traditionally amazing

Stripe-It-Up

Mom's style from back in the day (1972)

a new DIY project

gap stripes

more gap stripe campaign

Stripes are all the rage. Although that expression never really was my favorite. "Rage", for me, implies a certain anger and viciousness, and my feelings about stripes are far from being described by those two nouns. Stripes have come back into style might be a better way of putting it. The new GAP campaign has clearly incorporated stripes, and these can be found all over their store: vertically, horizontally, in all different widths. I think that stripes are a nice, clean and modest pattern. They remind me of Brittany (in France) and the whole sailor look, which I, for some reason, associate with organization and cleanliness. I found the blue and white striped dress at H&M for about $20 and have decided to amp up the striped look a bit by adding some more military details (although the epaulette may be a bit too large to be called a "detail"). I found the blue patch, satin cream-colored rope and beige fringe at Fabricville in Montreal (for about $14) and will eventually sew them together. I love the plaid look that's been going around as well, but the stripes are an even better way to look casual yet put together at the same time. My great friend Shannon (below) is also a huge fan of the stripes - and we can't say she looks too shabby in them either!

Shannon (wifey!)

Laurent and his striped number

Beats by Dr. Dre.

These are the dopest headphones. Ever. They look awesome and are super comfortable and the sound is insane. There's a sick "b" button on the side that pauses the music and a microphone attached to the main cable. I can't decide whether or not I should've gotten them in white (http://beatsbydre.com/products/Products.aspx?pid=3808) - you can also get them customized for about a bazillion dollars (I'd probably go with gold and/or pink): http://www.colorwarepc.com/p-176-beats.aspx

Today's beat (if you're into soft french-electro):

http://discodust.com/files/Marchand%20-%20Starlove.mp3

You decide...

Street art by Paul ... Richard? 2008. I can't seem to decipher the black glue on the Brooklyn pavement. I'm going to go with slightly heavier versions of Cary Grant and Dali (or an obese John Waters), what about you? The liquid tar drizzles are really nicely done - reminiscent of these drawings my art teacher used to make us do where you weren't allowed to take your pencil off the paper. I definitely hope to see some more.