Little(?) Pink Houses

UPDATED below (already!)

And yet again. Please keep your "pink houses" coming!

Yes, I know that the Guggenheim isn’t *exactly* a house. I have been thinking about it for the past week, though, as I uncharacteristically return to the advert pages of my New York Magazine, where this image is featured.

Truly, I think it would be lovely if the Guggenheim *were* pink, as a pink building in the midst of Manhattan’s characteristic gray is a lovely amuse bouche.

To wit, here’s the much maligned home of Julian Schnabel:

And stills from a video promoting its luxury apartments for sale.

I would live here. Indeed I would.

It actually reminds me not of an Italian villa, but a grand Cuban hotel I stayed at in Havana: Hotel Armadores de Santander (Shipowners of Santander), right on the water in Old Havana. It had enormous doors looking out onto a gloriously pink-tiled deck.

And pinkish-burgundy tufted leather couches. (The mojitos were perfectly green.)

But perhaps the most pinkish place I’ve stayed in was also in Cuba, the Hotel Horizontes los Jazmines, in the Vinales countryside.

I loved the pink exterior, as well as the stunning view of the mogotes (flat-topped mountains) from my window:

and from the swimming pool.

These images are from the web, but I’ll see whether I can’t find my own, which I've tucked away somewhere. I also have photos of the gorgeously pink bougainvilla at Ernest Hemingway’s home in Cuba.

Updates:

Belle de Ville reminded me that I'd forgotten to include the beautiful pink Beverly Hills Hotel. I visited it in the late 1990s and still have my pink souvenir t-shirt. Wish I'd picked up a bathrobe (though I can't remember whether they were pink . . . )

And below, thanks to a reader's suggestion, is a photo of Don Cesar, in St. Petersburg, Florida. I love the Days of Heaven quality of this photo: it looks like the hotel is alone among the dunes. I have a thing for Days of Heaven-type homes, but that's for another post.

Here's another shot of the Don. This image is a little too jet-ski-set for me; I prefer the illusion of old-world romantic solitude sans noisy technology, and avec books and pitchers of Pimm's. But still . . .

Summer Bonnets

The New York Times calls this a bonnet (tongue firmly in cheek, I assume). For the humble bonnet does not do justice to the fanciful, architectural creations from the "Tulips and Pansies" show.

And there's some up-close-and-personal coverage here, courtesy of that fabulous jewelry-designer-and-blogger-about-town, WendyB.

Whites for Summer

White swimsuits have been catching my eye and this shorts/bikini top combination is one of the prettiest that I’ve seen in a while.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the actress Isabel Lucas has impossibly long legs and is lit in a way that recalls a Slim Aarons photograph, with a touch of vintage Polaroid (love that blue-green sky and sea that meets the sand . . .).

It also reminds of Alaia’s work with eyelet, and I’m remembering (or imagining) Naomi Campbell in a two-piece set from the early 1990s that’s not dissimilar. Here’s a more recent look at Alaia’s cutout work:

This white bathing suit from T Travel Magazine completes my cloud-like cluster. Love its high waist.

The Hunger

I smiled when I saw that NYT’s “Pulse” section highlighted a Nars nail polish named after The Hunger, a 1983 vampire film that starred Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie, with Susan Sarandon.

I saw that film in the fall of 1983, as a first-year university student at an art-house film theater in downtown Ottawa. Deneuve’s Parisian vampire chic style mesmerized me, and I went out the following week to purchase her look.

I came home with a black leather knee-length pencil skirt, a pair of kittenish-heel, pointed-toe lace-up booties (that fit snugly around my ankle; hate gaping bucket-like ankles!), and a white fitted blouse that was meant to be worn outside the skirt; it had a straight hem with a band and a deep v-neck sans collar.

This I happily wore to my literature classes after lunch (in true vampire fashion, I didn’t rise before 11, although in my case it was 11:00 a.m.).

I did not, however, wear nail polish with this ensemble and think that even now I will pass on the chance to wear that particular shade of “Hunger.” Although I *do* like to go to bed a little hungry, “Satisfied” is my look of choice.

Floating Island

I know that the title to this post is a dessert, but it sums up my anticipated summer activities.

I plan to spend my days alternately floating in the deliciously chill water of Prince Edward Island (once you get in, it’s fine, we natives say with a wink), sampling fresh, sweet strawberries with cream, gazing lovingly at the red cliff beaches, and writing, writing, writing. (Sometimes, one woman *is* an island.)

As our semester races to its end, I’m so looking forward to slow, luxurious days of water and sand and new books. And maybe I might sample that delicacy mentioned in Anne of Green Gables . . . what was it . . . ice cream?!

Double X, John Currin, and Slate.com: A Feminist Triumvirate?

I’m pretty sensitive to the process of naming.

When deciding on what to call my middle daughter, for instance, I tried out a number of samples at my local Starbucks. The barista would write my daily “name” on the cup (steamed milk, by the way, for the pregnancy police out there) and call it out loudly when my drink was ready.

When I was well into my ninth month, I’m sure that the staff thought that the very pregnant woman with at least sixty different names for herself was a little wacko, but I did get a feel for how some of our more literary baby names would be accepted (would be pronounced! or spelled!!) out in the world. (Alas, my beloved “Honor” came back to me on my cup as “Honer,” pronounced “Hoe-ner.” Sigh.)

Today I read about the launch of a new Web magazine for women, published by the Slate Group (as in Slate.com). It grew out of a blog called The XX Factor, whose contributors include women who wrote for Slate as well as other female writers.

As a name, The XX Factor (which gives a nod to women’s two X chromosomes) works well enough for me. The sound of “X” before “Factor” of course conjures up an image of Max Factor cosmetics; the “F” following the “X” invokes “The X Files,” but those two buried cultural references seem innocuous enough.

But check out the name for the new Web magazine: Double X.

Sure, it’s a snappier reference to women’s double X chromosomes, but this purportedly feminist magazine's name also invokes a fantastic bra cup size: Double D, meet your match.

Now, I’m all for reclaiming pejorative language and concepts and turning them on their heads (Hi Bitch Magazine! Hi Feministing's Mud Flap Girl!). But I’m not sure that reducing (ahem—augmenting) a magazine’s title to a woman’s impossible bra size is something to celebrate.

Double X is the nameplate equivalent of a John Currin painting: you’re looking for the irony, but all you see is a serious presentation of cartoonish curves. The name suggests that no matter how much women drink from the cup of knowledge and smarts, it’s our other cups that define us.

Slate editors: It’s time to get out your chalk and write 100 times: I shall not use sneaky sexual double entendres to promote feminist thought.

Tonight, I’m writing “Annoyed” on my Starbucks cup. It runneth over.

Mythological Mum

There’s a family mythology surrounding my mother.

When she was a teenager, she left little Prince Edward Island to work at the beautiful St. Andrew’s By the Sea in New Brunswick for the summer. I don’t know exactly what she did there, but it was some sort of appropriate summer work for a teenage girl in the early 1950s.

Apparently she met an older “millionaire” couple from the United States and they liked her so much that they wanted to adopt her! My mum had golden ringlets, dancing brown-velvet eyes, and a fun sense of humor. But who adopts a teenager?! And who would leave her precious PE Island for good, except for a silly, overly ambitious girl?

Anyway, my mum returned home to complete her education, but the mythology remained. Growing up, I thought this scenario terribly romantic in an Anne of Green Gables sort of way.

My mum's in the second row from the bottom, the tall blonde to the right of the ladies and gent in black (in the front row).

Who knows what kinds of magical encounters could take place at this pretty hotel by the sea?