Two Parisian queens just vibing at their brothel.
Good reads, quick thoughts, + other weekend links.
Last night, after a week at home with a cold, I watched a retrospective screening of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I don’t think I’ve seen the movie since it was released in 2000, which would’ve made me eight years old at the time (don’t do the math on my age, please). It was incredible, which is to be expected given that it’s about cunty women doing martial arts and sword fighting. It also would never be made today without being CGIed to death. Watch it this weekend after you read this newsletter.
Welcome to Public Service, live from Berlin, the land of Lydia Tár.
Good Reads:
The Users Who Overtook the Machine
If you’re at all interested in the shifting landscape of fashion criticism, you need to read
’s “relatively brief, entirely incomplete history of online fashion fandom.”
I’ll be honest: I’ve yet to dive into Jerry Saltz’s takedown of the new exhibition “The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition,” but any review that opens a paragraph with the line “Brooklyn’s eternal secondary status is epitomized by the Brooklyn Museum” is a winner for me. I love a hater!
Quick Thoughts:
I rediscovered this painting in my Twitter bookmarks recently. In the work, two people of indeterminate age and gender lie covered up in one of the comfiest beds I’ve ever seen rendered in paint. The caption is deceptively simple: “A Sunday by Toulouse-Lautrec,” posted by a user who exclusively posts Impressionist art. The comments are a jumble of empty platitudes indistinguishable from bot speak: “Beautiful,” “So Cozy ♥️,” “Calm 😌 Beautiful ❤️.” One goes further, attempting valiantly to be deep: “This invokes a feeling that something so simple and innocent was stolen from us sometime in the past few decades.”
Of the 39 comments, only one person seems to know what the painting depicts: a Parisian brothel. The painting isn’t even called “A Sunday.” The work, called “Le Lit (or ‘The Bed’), was painted in 1892 by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as part of a series of sixteen portraits for the brothel’s salon (because, of course, brothels had walls covered in art). This particular work depicts two female sex workers at the brothel in a quiet, intimate moment. I’m not going to say, “Harold, they’re lesbians,” but the signs are pointing sapphic!
Once I’d learned this context, going back to see the brain-numbing comments littering the post felt a bit dystopic, but that’s just the nature of being online. Art, clothes, life, everything is flattened. Context is stripped away, and suddenly, two Parisian girlies vibing out at the brothel become fodder for yet another bed-rotting Pinterest moodboard.
Weekend Links:
For more great Parisian brothel content, please stop what you’re doing and stream the 1967 erotic romance movie Belle de Jour. The film centers around a bored housewife who joins a brothel to explore her freaky side. Legendary Surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel directs it and if you’re not convinced that it’s a banger based on these details and don’t mind light plot spoilers, here is a very slick preview from the 4K restoration.
Speaking of previews, I try to avoid watching them anymore because they tend to be a “no loads refused cum dump” of too much information. They spill out the major plot points in a craven effort to convince us to buy a ticket to see the story they just spoiled. I mention all of this because, on Tuesday, I made the mistake of watching half the preview for Babygirl. Now, I say mistake not because the movie looks bad; it actually looks so hot I’m counting the days until Christmas when the film will thaw me in my seat. I say mistake because ever since watching Harris Dickinson in his brilliant debut Beach Rats, I’ve fiended for that British man in a way that makes me dizzy. If I had known the sexually confused young man in Coney Island chatting up strangers in gay chat rooms (seriously, watch Beach Rats) might eventually engage in dom/sub sexcapades with Nicole Kidman, I would have joined a convent to protect my soul. Alas, here I am, joining the horny masses as I wait for December to come.
No thoughts just Carrie Bradshaw in these Prada Spring 2001 looks.
No comment (yet) on his Valentino debut, but I did love this quote from Alessandro Michele on the BoF Podcast: “It’s such a gift to have a passion […] When you are a kid, and you feel there is something that moves your heart, follow.”
Call it grandpamaxxing, chesscore, or simply “what Chris thinks he looks like when he wears clothes like this.” The fact is that Timothée Chalamet remains one of the few male movie stars of this age who can successfully put the internet into a rabid frenzy — and inspire GQ’s US and British offices to churn out content — because of paparazzi set photos. As we near the release of his Bob Dylan biopic, Timtam Chalet has moved on to playing a 1950s ping-pong wizard in the new Josh Safdie film. However, he could just as easily be doing a biopic about German-Jewish philosopher Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin or, uhm, Arthur’s teacher, Mr. Ratburn.
Thanks for joining me, and have a nice day!