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  • Bohemians, Bloggers & Book People

    If you ever plan on entertaining a bunch of bohemians, skip the crudites and order more sushi.  We’re still trying to finish off all of those damn vegetables. 

    The blog’s first-anniversary party was held in Thomas Wolfe’s old room, now occupied by the photographer Julia Calfee, who was kind enough to let us borrow it for the event.  Even Robert Lambert and Dave Linter gave up their lobby spots to drop by.  Highlights include Robert’s cell phone going off constantly (whoever it was no doubt thought he was still in the lobby), and Dave, who walks with a cane, announcing loudly as he exited, “I need a wide berth, here!” and scaring a couple of Brooklyn bloggers, who didn’t know that he has a sense of humor, half to death.

    The painter George Chemeche, commenting on the aging bohemian population of the Chelsea, said that every time someone dies, he figures he’s going to be next.  But anyone can see he’s still got a lot of life left in him.

    Befitting the creatively charged atmosphere of the Chelsea, there was at least one scene, theatrically staged, between two artistic rivals, but the principals have asked us not to discuss it until 50 years after their deaths.  (Rest assured, an account will be found in my papers!)

    Robert Lasner of Ig Publishing went home with the door prize, a bottle of Makers Mark, for answering the most Chelsea Hotel trivia questions.  Winning question: In what room did Sid kill Nancy?

    The real highlight of the party didn’t come, however, until most everyone had gone home.  The Irish lady who was staying next door in the transient room popped her head out and told us how nice it was that there were still hotels like this left.  She drank a glass of wine with us and showed us her room – the other half of Thomas Wolfe’s old suite – and what should we discover there but the fashion designer Charles James’ ancient drafting table!!  Readers of the blog know that, not having enough room, we set this table out many years ago, with a note attached describing what it was.  We’ve been wandering ever since who might have retrieved it, and now we know: Stanley Bard!  He has it nailed into a bookshelf, so no one else can ever again throw it in the trash.  The party pics are here.

  • All Tomorrow’s Parties – May 1 – 8

    Monday, May 1
    The Empire State Building turns 75 today.  If you’re fortunate enough to have a room with a view you can enjoy the monthly light shows they have planned for through-out the year.  Or, celebrate by viewing Andy Warhol’s "Empire," an 8-hour, 6-minute silent film of the building from a single perspective, punctuated only by intermittent flashes of light.

    Dita Tuesday, May 2, 10:30 p.m.
    Back by popular demand — Susanne Bartsch & Kenny Kenny & Dita Von Teese invite you to: HAPPY VALLEY TUESDAYS.  Show: DITA VON TEESE
    DJ TOMMIE SUNSHINE; Downstairs: DJ RYAN & KIM ANN
    Hosts: SOPHIA LAMAR. KIM AVIANCE, MIRANDA MOONDUST, THEODORA & AMANDA LEPORE; Door: ANDREA
    14 East 27th St., NY NY

    Wednesday, May 3
    Today is the opening of AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion which focuses on British fashion from 1976 to 2006.  The exhibit comes complete with a podcast by punk legend Johnny Rotten. (via newyorkology)
    The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Ave., NY NY

    FrMandyiday, May 5,
    Images from the collection of photographs which used to hang in the office of the now bankrupt Refco commodities brokerage including works by former Chelsea Hotel residents Robert Mapplethorpe and William Eggleston, are scheduled to be sold at Christies.  Mapplethorpe’s photo of Andy Warhol is among those being offered to the highest bidder.
    20 Rockefeller Plaza, NY NY

    Saturday, May 6, 11:00 – 5:00
    The Poetry Bash will feature verses  in which the poet will take on the personae of the city’s geography, history and lore.  Poet Max Blagg takes on the personae of the Chelsea Hotel. 
    I am the Chelsea Hotel
    red brick walls
    wrapped in black iron lace
    memory of a thousand parties still rocking
    the staircase that runs through my heart
    all the way to the starlit roof
    where Merce’s dancers once
    kneeled to face the dawn.
    Hash smoke in the hallways
    ghost of Janis Joplin….
    City University of New York Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave, NY NY

    If you want your event highlighted on All Tomorrow’s Parties send the information to chelblog@yahoo.com

  • Rent-Stabilized Buildings

    Gothamist points to evidence that the Rent Guidelines Board will raise rent-stabilizied rents by 6.7%.  The next public hearing about rent increases for rent-stabilized buildings will be May 8 at Cooper Union.

  • Preview Alejandro Escovedo’s Latest Release

    Ae "The Boxing Mirror," scheduled to be released on May 2 unites Escovedo with one of his long-time music heroes, John Cale.  You can hear a preview of the album on Escovedo’s Myspace page.

  • The Blisstones at the Chelsea

    If yoBlissu can’t make it to the Blisstones performance tonight at The Saint in Asbury Park, New Jersey  check out their Chelsea Hotel video on Youtube.com.  Here’s what Laura Fay, the lead vocalist, has to say about being part of the Chelsea’s creative energy.

    My favorite Chelsea Hotel story is actually shooting our music video there. Renting a hotel room, with a balcony, also using the room, for an "afterparty" scene, and the bathroom as a location to play guitars, the stairway (with all the famous art on the walls)  The Hotel Chelsea lives and breathes creative energy. My best time there was with my boyfriend, and the worst time was loosing a video camera leaving The Chelsea Hotel after the afterparty for our video shoot.  We had quite a party and can’t believe we weren’t arrested…….

  • A Double-Edged Spoon

    Spoon

    Forced out of the Chelsea by gentrification?  Looking for the perfect gift for the yuppies who are taking over your apartment?  Well, look no further.  Now available on e-bay is this silver spoon with the words "Hotel Chelsea" engraved on them.  Little Ashley or Jenna or whatever they’re calling their kids these days — is sure to love it. Best of all, its a double-edge spoon: don’t these yuppies realize that, growing up in the Chelsea, little Jenna is bound to become a heavily tattooed, drug-addicted performance artist?  Maybe they can sell the spoon to pay for Ashley’s psychiatric care.  Or better yet, Ashley can use it to cook up her heroin.

  • More Corporate Blogging Options

    Robert French, a public relations professor at Auburn University had plenty of unflattering comments about Starwood’s new corporate hotel blog, www.thelobby.com.  For one thing, French notes that the site is boring.  By contrast, he has nothing but praise for Living with Legends.  He writes: "your blog is quite interesting.  You should go help the folks at Sheraton/Starwood."  Yeah, I bet they would love to pay us too.  Hear that Stanley? Maybe we should jump ship.  The prospect of a junkie-free bathroom is not without its charm.  On the the other hand, what would we write about — the continental breakfast?

  • Mia Hanson: The Lobby Is A Portal

    Fine Art Photographer Mia Hanson has lived in the Chelsea Hotel with her husband, Hawk Alfredson Mia_copy since October 2001. We’re happy to report that she too shares our belief that the lobby is a portal into another dimension. (Photos by Mia Hanson)

    Have you thought of incorporating the Hotel into your moody imagery in any way?
    Truthfully, I’m nearly haunted by the fact that I haven’t done this in any meaningful way yet. I just need to focus on a way to  express the soul of the Hotel that is unique enough to pursue. I have participated in many interesting projects concerning the artists who currently live in the Hotel and I think my project would need to go in a different direction. The Hotel is a Terezkasepiasmall unique organic installation in many ways shaped by it’s management. Ideas will come assuredly and I know that I cannot force this. So, I wait. In the meantime I’ll share with you an image of Terezka that I took recently on the 10th floor of the Hotel. The huge skylight works as a lightbox – I just love the natural even light. Skin appears soft and sculptural.

    Besides a nice quality of light, what do you feel makes a great image?
    I look for pictures that capture a moment in time with authenticity. I think that on some level when we look to the artistry of the camera we ask to be shown the beauty that resides in the world and within it’s people. Ideology of beauty is varied, but I believe that this is what we all search for. Whatever the beholder determines to be beautiful provides a great source of strength and hope. The presence of an austere landscape can be inspiring since it reminds us of the beautiful silences that we have within ourselves. As the trumpeter Jon Hassell has thoughtfully said, "It’s not only the notes that are played, it’s the silences between the notes as well."

    Maybe you are interested in capturing the silences between the shutter release?      
    This thought reminds me of my relationship with those I have repeatedly photographed. They know all too well of my reputation for waiting. Waiting for what?  The Moment! the moment when the subject realizes after sitting a while (or lying naked in the snow) that they can trust that I am on their side (although a little bit warmer perhaps) and their eyes widen and take in that moment of trust with me. When I take someone’s portrait I am Being with them in their moment.

    There is something going on in your photos.  How would you describe it?
    For me, this is the most difficult question. Whether photographing a person or a place I’m always searching for the soul of my subject. As a photographer, I try to tap into some other frequency of mood and emotion that is there, yet hidden. Unlike the painter who creates from imagination, I’m fascinated with the thought of lifting the veil from our given reality. Mainly, since I know there’s something else around us- I can feel it , but I can’t see it and that’s frustrating.  I’m always wishing that a ghost will make an appearance for my camera…

    Ghostly images… Have you seen works produced with a Kirlian camera by any chance?
    The contact print studies of organic objects are exciting regarding their scientific importance, yet the "aura portraits" are less compelling. You would think photographing with magnetic energy should be reason enough for anyone to get their own Kirlian and have a go at it. I know I’ve been saving my pennies for one. I look forward to exploring this energy creatively.

    If you could design your own camera, what would it be like?
    I don’t have a name for this hypothetical camera, but it would have simultaneous sensitivity for capturing both white light and magnetic frequency. Just imagine how amazing our world would be if we could see in delineations of full color the Other Reality beyond our eyes? With my camera we would then see how the trees might feel their own forest.

    Is there any particular photographic genre you would like to see represented and shown more?
    I greatly admire the staged "Magical Realist" imagery of various Czech photographers. Their well of emotional depth runs deep and they express a passion for life and an empathy for death. The American photographer Joel-Peter Witkin is a Master of morbid staged imagery. His painterly photographs of cadavers carefully placed with other found objects are surprisingly inspiring and
    beautiful. Witkin is some sort of alchemical wizard if there really can be one of those among us today.
    It seems to me as if he likes to play the role of a benevolent God asking the maimed players in his theatre to seek out the light. I think that Witkin profoundly expresses the strong human desire to overcome dark forces; Weakness of the human spirit being one of the most destructive of all these forces.

    Who is the most famous person you have ever ridden with in the Hotel elevator?
    Sean Lennon. He seemed a bit nervous. Just stared downward for four flights to the lobby. Maybe he had kaliedescopic mirrors on his shoes. I’ve spotted Daniel Lanois and Julie Delpy passing through the lobby. Not at the same time, however. Both seemed to be quite charming and convivial.

    Any evidence you can share that would bring us closer to the theory that the Hotel Chelsea is actually a portal of entry into another dimension?
    No evidence yet, but keoliechu phum xizt !!!

  • Cynthia Hopkin’s Tsimtsum or Dylan Thomas’ Last Whiskey Drunk

    On Friday, April 21, we saw Tsimtsum, by Cynthia Hopkins, as part of the Sourcing Stravinsky program at the Dance Theatre Workshop. We didn’t know in advance, but Tsimtsum turned out to have a connection to the Hotel Chelsea.

    Hopkins came out on a dimly lighted stage, walking backwards dressed in a space suit, and asked us to imagine that she was Dylan Thomas drinking his last whiskey at the White Horse Tavern Space before falling from his barstool, never to regain consciousness, and dying.  She asked us to imagine that we were Dr. Cook, who I assume was Dylan’s physician, the one who pronounced his death due to what he called a severe insult to the brain. (Photo by Paula Court)  She said that right before his death, Thomas had met with Igor Stravinsky, and they had discussed composing an opera together.  This had never come about, but luckily, she, a being of an advanced race that had taken over earth after the extinction of mankind, had been able to reconstruct this opera by randomizing all of Dylan’s words, and combining them randomly with a random sample of all the notes Stravinsky had ever composed.  And now, she announced, she was going to perform that opera.

    At some point she turned around, slipped out of her space suit, to reveal that she was indeed a superior being, complete with pig nose, flowerpot hairdo, and flowing gypsy robes with tiny airport Jackd bottles of Jack Daniels dangling from the fringes.  She danced slowly, purposefully, to music of her own composition.  Eerily, in a lilting voice, she sang about how the human race had committed suicide by blowing up the planet in a nuclear war.  The atmosphere of the earth had been burned off, the planet transformed into a fiery, uninhabitable desert, as the people were fried to a crisp and vaporized.  Or something like that.

    All this was what Dylan contemplated in that final moment of his life as he was sliding from his barstool, on the way down to the floor.  Finally, the last whisky drunk, the earth, in cooling, reduced to a cold ashy ember, Dylan seemed to be Dylanroom transported back to his room at the Chelsea; he sat back in his comfy chair as the performance wound down. (Photos by Paula Court) Don’t worry, the alien assured us, though our race was dead, her people would look after the earth for us; they would just live underground for a few millennia until the planet came back to life.

    I know it sounds kind of lame, but this was a much better show than my review would lead one to believe; it was a fascinating, riveting, haunting performance.  Read the NYTimes review. List of Cynthia’s upcoming shows.  Buy In Memoriam: Dylan Thomas by Igor Stavinsky. Buy music by Cynthia’s band, Gloria Deluxe.

  • A Year of Slices – The Revelatory Work

    Hard to believe, but soon we’ll be celebrating the blog’s one-year-anniversary. It’s an excuse to re-post my favorite Slice of Life story.

    The Revelatory Work
         I found a purse in the shared bathroom one morning.  It contained the usual junk that women carry around, and a wallet with an ID and forty dollars in it.  From the picture on the ID, I could tell that it Coffepot wasn’t anybody who had any business using our bathroom.  I suspected the worst, that she was a junkie who had broken in to shoot up, and that made me feel like taking the money and throwing her purse in the trash just to teach her a lesson.  But really I had no evidence of that, and I’d seen her around the hotel, so I asked for her room number and took the purse up to where she lived on the fifth floor.
         The woman who answered the door was tall, middle-aged, with long, dyed-red hair.  She wore bracelets and a flowing, robe-like, Turkish hippie shirt.  She had apparently been sleeping, or otherwise indisposed, and at first she didn’t understand what the hell I was saying, but when she caught on she was really grateful: “Oh my God!  I didn’t even know that was gone.  Oh thank you so much.  Let me give you a reward.”
                “That’s OK.”
                “No, no.  I should give you something for your trouble.  I’m so scatterbrained!”  She checked her wallet, then said, “Oh, I’m afraid I’m kind of short right now.  I’m unemployed at the moment.”
                “Don’t worry about it.”
                “Actually,” she said, “I’m a poetess.  At the moment I’m composing a long revelatory work of scope and vision that I believe will open the eyes of a great many people around the world.”
                “Wow,” I said, and then, mercenary son of a bitch that I am, asked, “You think you’ll get some money for that?”            
             “Perhaps,” she said, with a touch of condescension. “Certainly I’m not in it solely for the money.”

                “Of course not.”

                “Cynthia Blair, by the way,” she said, extending a long, thin hand.

                I didn’t hear anything more from Cynthia for a few weeks after that, but apparently it had been bothering her that she couldn’t give me a reward, because one day she showed up at my door.  “I still don’t have any money,” she said, “but I have this coffee pot.  It’s a nice coffee pot, don’t you think?”

                There was nothing nice about it whatsoever.  It was an old, used coffee pot.  I must have looked rather bewildered, because she clarified her offer: “You can have it if you want.”

                I took the pot.  “Thanks,” I said.

                “I just wanted to give you something for your trouble.”

                Now the strange thing about it was, it was a very small coffee pot, apparently for espresso.  I had never seen one before.  “Uh, how do you use it,” I asked

                “I don’t know.  I’ve never used it before,” Cynthia said.  “I think you just put it on the burner.”

                “Hmmm.”

                “It needs a basket or something to go inside, but maybe you can find one of those.”

                “Oh yeah, I’m sure that’ll be no problem,” I said, unable, despite myself, to suppress a hint of sarcasm.  “Thanks.  It looks real good.”

                We stood there in the doorway for a moment, not knowing what more to say to each other.  Finally, I asked, “How’s the revelatory work coming?”

    “What?  Oh, very well, thank you.  I believe it’s being well received.”

                “Good.”

                “However, as I’m sure you must realize, these things take time to be resolved, and in the meantime the mold is growing thick all around us.”

                Cynthia turned to go.  But then she thought of something and turned back and said, “Oh, by the way, I’d rinse that pot out if I were you.  I had bleach in it.”

                I wondered, but I didn’t ask.  Something for the trash after all.

    Ed Hamilton