Tamerlane Phillips Presents: Hilt!

Tamerlane Phillips Presents: Hilt! This weeks Guest: Mr. John Taki Theodoracopulos

He goes fast. He rides his bicycle all day in New York City. He is a 28 year old Bike Messenger. And an artist. He wanders and wonders. He carries five six seven eight ten packages on his back, picks them up and drops them off. All day long. And while he rams yellow cabs and shouts at them and loves the big clear blue Hemingway sky, the light, the bridges, the chunks of ice in the Hudson River, he takes pictures. He just had an exhibition, “On a night like this”, at the Work gallery, in Brooklyn, with his friend Jonah Birns. And he is now working on the making of a video that will take him around the world, from the operating room of an Irish doctor to the mount Chugach mountains in Alaska, after crossing the Atlantic Ocean on an old sexy sailing boat. We met him Downtown in the Birdbath Bakery on 7th avenue, trying to follow his fast random thoughts the time of a coffee, before he put his helmet on his curly head again, jumped on his beautiful white Pogliaghi bike and disappeared, leaving a trail that smelled like freedom.

What is it like to Bike Messenger?

You ride ride ride ride all day. And you are grumpy: it’s your job to be grumpy, and to make things happen fast. You are in a mission all day: to get threw the city as fast as you can. You have seven eight nine ten packages on you and when you finish them all you are like “how did I do that?” It’s either the best job in the world or the worst. Sometimes it can be friezing cold and windy and it rains and for some reasons it’s perfect, you are so happy. And sometimes it is the worst, and you ask yourself “why am I doing this?”

Why are you doing it?

I love it. I am always on the move. What is hard about having my own business now (John Taki has created Taki Express, a bike messenger company named after his 3 year old son): I have to be patient. Another think that I love about messengering is that you go fast, and it’s hard, but you have so much time to think, time for yourself, you are alone. And at the same time in 15 minutes you can see 4 bike messenger friends passing by, and you see all sorts of people. And when I get into a big building to drop off a package and there are 20 dead beats that get paid more then you do and they look at you in the meanest way, you feel you have so much more purpose. Being a messenger is addictive.

What is your relationship with Taxi drivers?

Do you now the movie the Duellists with Harvey Keitel? He is a French legionnere in Russia and for three decades they duel them selfs every time they see each others. People in cars are like babies, they hunk, they wine as if they had with bees on their feet.

When did you start making art?

When I was sixteen I started getting into graffiti and then I would say I was a painter. I don’t paint that much anymore: when you paint you are locked up alone. I used to need to be closed very closed in a studio and to get lost in my own space. Now I try to get lost in the world, instead of inside myself. That’ s why I started to take pictures. I guess it means growing up.

What camera do you use?

I took my pics for the show with a shitty cell phone camera. But now I am looking for a good camera, to make videos and photos with. I am hunting for the camera the way I hunt for old Campagnolo bike parts. It’s going be so fun to learn, and difficult. But it was good to go threw all this other stuff like painting to get to want to use a real camera. It’s like wanting to live in all this other places, Paris, Rome, Los Angeles, to then come back to New York. I wasn’t ready before to live here. Now I am. New York is cold, pizza, (not “cold pizza”), big clear blue Hemingway sky, riding over the bridges, the chunks of ice in the Hudson river, like when the plane landed on it. I was in a building, 601 West 26th street: I could see it perfectly. I saw people that looked like they were walking on the water cause they were on the wings. New York is like riding in the Grand Canyon: a dark street and then you get to an intersection and its’ sunny, you go threw and it warms you. It’s like being in a valley. And the Alley Cats, the totally illegal street races are so much fun. As much as going from Brooklyn to over the Manhattan Bridge, on the West Side Highway over the George Washington Bridge to Bear Mountain.

Tell me more about your art.

I hate talking about art. Don’t talk too much, do! I am going to start filming. I watched a BBC doc on ubu.com about Francis Bacon and It helped to come up with the idea of the film. It’s gonna be about doctor Kennedy and powder skiing in the Chugach and sailing. I have the story in me, I don’t want to put it into words. That’s another thing I liked about the BBC doc: Bacon said “this painting works”. And the journalist asked why? “I don’t know, it just does.”

Who else are you into?

Scott Fitzgerald: he wrote is The night as if he had lived a all life but he was only in his early twenties. Then Henry Miller who wrote Quite Days in Clichy. And Somerset Maugham who wrote The Razors Edge: I love Larry Darrel. And Hemingway with all his amazing characters: from the girl who will always love him even if they can’t make love, to the girls waiting for men to get them drunk and feed them dinner, to the models and the painters getting wild in the caffes.

What about living people?

Dick Chaney who is Doctor Strangelove in a wheal chair with the black leather gloves and he can’t stop himself from giving the nazi salut. And my friends: genius Jupiter Jones; those I sail with on old boats with dead but alive wood stretching; my Alley Cat competitors with eyes glazed and hearts pumping and so much respect even if we are trying to kill each other. And last but not the least my children and Assia.

Super Duper Met Costume Gala

L.A. might have the Oscars, but Manhattan’s social event of the season is the annual Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute gala, which draws bold-faced, glammed-up names from both coasts and across the pond. This year’s theme? Superheroes, a fitting one given the massive box-office hit that was Iron Man, and the upcoming flicks The Dark Knight, […]

Pant Suit Watch: A Journey Into Knitwear Volume 3

One of Hillary Clinton’s Turquoise Pant Suits, code named “Cindy Sherman” for its own morphic persona, has claimed to raise $15 million dollars online in one hour, shattering all records. Pant Suits world wide, including the linen Chanel Spring ’08 jobbie pictured above, were electrified by the news.

Snag: There is no more on this story, Sucka!

Giorgio Armani Names CEO of U.S. Subsidiary

MILAN ? Giorgio Armani SpA on Thursday named Bruno Laguardia as chief executive officer of its U.S. subsidiary, replacing Bridget Ryan Berman, who left the company in September.

Laguardia, 61, was most recently responsible for spearheading the creation and organization of Trimil SpA, a joint venture set up in 2000 between Armani and Ermenegildo Zegna SpA, to oversee manufacturing and distribution of the Armani Collezioni men’s wear line. He began his career at Bassetti Group, an international manufacturer and distributor of home textile products, and has also worked in executive roles at Zegna.

Laguardia “is an accomplished professional with a broad range of experience in the areas of manufacturing, wholesale and retail operations,” said Giorgio Armani, who is president and ceo of his company. “He is a leader with great collaborative skills and a proven track record in development.

Collette Dinnigan, Akira Isogawa, Lisa Ho, Martin Grant, Carla Zampatti, Easton Pearson, Michelle Jank. Nicola Finetti,Conrad Martens, Charles Darwin, John Glover, Glover was one of the precursors of an Australian style of painting, Tasmania, landscapepainter, TheHeidelbergSchool, The Heidelberg School,
Tom Roberts, Fredrick McCubbin, Arthur Streeton, the Australian Artist. c1915, Clara Crosbie, Lilydale. Melbourne-based, Nora Simpson, Grace Cossington Smith,
The Sock Knitter (1915), ‘Contemporary Group’ in 1926,Roland Wakelin, Roy de Maistre, Margaret Preston, Aboriginal art, Barbara Tucker, Albert Tucker, Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan, Hurstbridge, c.1968, photograph, gelatin silver, National Library of Australia, Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd, Albert Tucker, Ned Kelly and Richie From Totally Cool Magazine Down

Glamwire DATELINE March 27th 2008

Queen Carla

LONDON ­?

Clearly she felt it was time to cover up for the Royals. As racy photos of her were splashed all over the British tabloids and magazines, French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy toned things way down Wednesday as she and her husband, President Nicholas Sarkozy, landed here for a 36-hour charm exercise. And Bruni-Sarkozy played it by the rules ? wearing flats so she didn’t tower over her diminutive husband; going even a bit dowdy in a gray midcalf-length belted dress by Dior to meet Camilla and the Queen, and borrowing a page from Jackie O with a matching pillbox hat. As she walked with Prince Philip and rode in a gilded carriage through the cobblestoned streets, Cinderella Carla, even a demure one, brought a much-needed shot of glamour to the frumpy Windsors.

Talk about a contrast.

As Carla Bruni-Sarkozy went through her official duties as French first lady here Wednesday, even the most ardent Brit must have been wondering what happened in the chic stakes. Bruni-Sarkozy may have landed at Heathrow wearing a gray Christian Dior calf-length dress and Dior’s new Babe handbag, which made the former model look more Ma’am than Madame, but the second she stood beside Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall ? and later, Queen Elizabeth II ? it became clear that, even when they’re trying to be sedate, French chic is au naturel.

And that was what she was all over the British tabloids and in British GQ, as the Brits greeted her in their inimitable way. But all that seemed to fade away the second Bruni-Sarkozy and her husband, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, stepped off the plane, where they were greeted by Prince Charles and Camilla (in some strange feathered hat) and then whisked off to Windsor.

The day was a blur of official appointments ? including lunch with the Queen, a visit to Westminster Abbey, and an address by Sarkozy to both houses of Parliament.

For lunch, Bruni-Sarkozy wore a ribbed wool Ottoman gray suit, and for her visit to the houses of Parliament, she wore a light gray wool jersey dress with a navy wool coat.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Queen gave Sarkozy the title of Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, an honor previously given to other world leaders.

Queen Carla’s Subjects: Lyons Brown, Kellyan Maclean, Giovanni Carestia, Matti Anttila, Shaul Nakush,Delores Concepcion-Daniels, Al Gore, Noa Yemini, Andre Balasz, Joel Warren, Sarah Jessica Parker, Shia Lebeouf, Dave McNulty, , Agent 99, Leonardo Dicaprio, Robert F. Kennedy, Federick Law Olmsted, Pyotry Tschaikovskym John Jacobson, David Lauren, Jennifer Creel, Jim McGee, Patrick Shimm, Anne Slater, Gaylord Nelson

The GLAMWIRE One Minute Interview: John Basedow <BR> BONUS: Episode 4 of John Basedow TV, with special additional commentary work by a Mystery Correspndent on Screen #3

John Basedow and Maggie Fine have many fans in Australia. And here are a few : Yitz Davidson, Makio, Collette Dinnigan, Akira Isogawa, Lisa Ho, Martin Grant, Carla Zampatti, Easton Pearson, Michelle Jank. Nicola Finetti,Conrad Martens, Charles Darwin, John Glover, Glover was one of the precursors of an Australian style of painting, Tasmania, landscapepainter, TheHeidelbergSchool, […]