Dear Chris Camargo,
I love the beautiful images of Los Angeles you kindly share on your photo blog. You capture our city the way only somebody who truly loves it could. If you’re having a bad day, hating the smog, plastic surgery, and superficiality that gives this city a bad rap, take a look at these pretty pictures:
These pictures make me happy.
Love,
Orlando
PS: Check out Chris Camargo’s professional site for more fashion and commercial photographs.
Filed under California, Californiatimez, I Love LA, Images I Love, Uncategorized
Dear Carlo Van de Roer,
Firstly, I love your name. I’m hoping your last name is pronounced RAWR, like a lion roaring. Second, I was browsing 20×200, one of my favorite affordable art sites, when I came across some of your glamorous prints. They basically have everything I need: water, the color aqua, people in bikinis, and dots. There’s really nothing else in the world I care about. Some of your prints are available on 20×200 for as little as $60, which is a total barg if you ask me.
Check out Carlo’s 20×200 Store and buy something. I’m going to…
Love,
Orlando
Filed under Images I Love, The Artz
Dear Diary,
Until last week it was still summer in Los Angeles. For the entirety of the endless Halloweekend 2011, it was 80 degrees and gorgeous. Thus, I have been itching for some fall weather. Some trees with yellowing leaves. Some fall rain, wetting the dry grasses and making everything smell like freshly brewed chamomile tea. Instead, what we have in LA is bimbos (male and female) playing volleyball underneath palm trees, tanning their skin in the glorious sunlight and going on hikes carrying an iced coffee in one hand and an adorable Chihuahua in the other. Sometimes the only way you know it’s autumn here is when you go into the coffee shop and they are serving “pumpkin spice lattes.” Sidenote: WTF is a pumpkin spice, and why do we all pretend it is a rational flavor for a coffee drink?
My first response to feeling fall-deprived is normally to drive straight to Yosemite, my homeland and the place where my parents still reside. But I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had time. So this weekend, after narrowly avoiding jury duty on Friday, I fled to the mountains. One of my favorite things about going up there is the drive itself, which weaves up the Hollywood Freeway, to The 5 Freeway, to Highway 99, to Highway 41. These roads take you through the golden center of California, surrounded by beautiful ochre mountains that do nothing but remind you of John Steinbeck novels and their descriptions of the Western landscape.
Once you get up into the mountains, the vegetation changes and so does the color palette. From golds and yellows to greens, browns, and reds. This is on a road in Mariposa, about 1.5 hours outside Yosemite.
This is the view from the Wawona Hotel, where I went to a wine tasting event with my parents. It was freezing!
On Sunday morning I woke up in my childhood bedroom and it was snowy outside, which is always dreadfully exciting.
This is the waterfall by my parents house. The cloud situation led to pretty pictures.
The view from Mirror Lake, looking slightly like a Japanese block print.
Note the 27 degree temperature on the dashboard. YES!
As you can imagine, I came back to Los Angeles feeling refreshed and ready to play volleyball with all the other bimbos. YAY!
Love,
Orlando
Filed under Images I Love
Dear Frank Scherschel,
I love your vintage surf pictures! I found them on the Olasul blog. They make me want to transport myself back in time and be a hunky surfer. Dreams…
Thanks,
Orlando
Filed under Images I Love
Dear Gregor Wynnyczuk,
Emily and I have been finding a lot of vintage landscape paintings at flea markets to use for the show. Every time I see them I think of the work you included in a Boffo exhibition I was in a few years ago. You give these old paintings voices. Funny ones. Your work is witty and thought-provoking. Thanks for making it!
Love,
Orlando
Filed under Images I Love
Dear Diary,
Today, whilst shopping in Santa Monica, Emily and I discussed our first celebrity sightings. Emily couldn’t remember her first celeb sighting, but I totally remember mine. The first celebrity I ever saw in person was Anjelica Houston, and seeing her was the beginning of a one-sided love affair that is still going strong.
My Aunt Julie and her partner, Jules, lived in Three Rivers, California across the street from Anjelica Houston’s country home. We used to visit there from time to time to enjoy the countryside, horses (which I rode a few times and was totally terrified), the beautiful river, and all the other Little House on the Prairie amenities (including an actual outhouse). One day, all my aunties went out riding together and they rode by with Anjelica Houston (I believe I was sitting on a rock at the time). From then on I’ve always been totally obsessed with Anjelica. A year or two after that the first of the Addams Family movies came out and my love for her was cemented. She has such a soothing, elegant, nuanced, and sophisticated presence. But more than that, you can tell she has a little grit. She’s not just your typical girly actress. Shes’s a tough lady, who also happens to be totally gorgeous. Here are some pictures of her being totally glamourous through the ages:
I love you Anjelica. You are the coolest lady in the whole world. Let’s be friends.
Love,
Orlando
Filed under Hommegirls, Images I Love, What Do YOU Do?
Dear Dave Eggers,
I was in a delightful little bookstore in Healdsburg yesterday and I came across a wonderful folio of your drawings entitled Is It Right To Draw Their Fur. I kind of want to buy the collection of drawings, have them all framed, and hang them in my now-empty living room. It’s basically an instant art collection. The drawings are humorous but also rendered sensitively with beautiful tiny strokes. I love them.
Cover art:
Folio collection:
I love these so much I want them RIGHT NOW!
Love,
Orlando
Filed under Images I Love, Literarytimez, The Artz
Dear Friends,
Anyone who knows me well knows that two men captivate and thrill me to no end. These men are novelist Gore Vidal, who has written some of the most heartwrenching and sensible words of our time, and Hedi Slimane, fine art photographer and former Dior Homme head designer. Thus, you can imagine my shock and delight when I was browsing Hedi Slimane’s Diary and found that he had photographed Gore, my favorite writer ever. I love that he captured the author in his space, surrounding by all these wonderful and evocative objects. If you don’t know Vidal, start with his memoirs (Palimpsest and Point to Point Navigation) and then move onto The City and the Pillar, which is a devastatingly beautiful, painful novel. Here are a few of the images by Slimane:
I love how textured and quiet these images are. I also love how thoughtful Slimane was in choosing which objects to photograph. For example, the image below of a young Paul Newman, Vidal’s life-long friend and, in my opinion, the most beautiful man in the history of time.
To view the rest of the gorgeous photos, as well as more of Slimane’s visual diary, go to Hedi Slimane Diary.
You’re welcome.
Love,
Orlando
Filed under Hedi Slimane, Images I Love, The Artz
