Bathroom images from “I’ll Be Your Mirror” by photographer Thomas Dozol

Debbie Harry, Patti Smith… these grand ladies quietly weaved through photographer Thomas Dozol’s opening at the Envoy Gallery on Chrystie Street last week.  The show has received attention for its intimate shots of Dozol’s friends — including models, Gwyneth Paltrow, and partner, the musician Michael Stipe — but it’s also pleasant to view because of Dozol’s use of light. No matter the subjects– some white, very hairy guys — Dozol infuses them with a certain easy beauty.

Of course it helps that the 34-year-old native Frenchman can play voyeur to some illustrious subjects, including Stipe, who appears shaving in a mirror. Dozol, a seeming perfectionist with a penchant for black Margiela ensembles, humbly greeted each guest who walked through the door. He even encouraged folks to grab a brew at the downstairs cellar bar and bring it back into the art space.

The show runs through Valentine’s Day, February 14th, and there’s a slide show of out takes below. Or check out the gallery website: http://www.envoyenterprises.com/current.html

http://www.slack-time.com/music-video-7348-Cheryl-Cole-Fight-For-This-Love

Our lovely Hudson poster girl, Georgia May Jagger… fairest of them all!

Carmen Harra, a native of Transylvania who now resides in Queens, NYC, has read the future for uptown socialites, actors like Jennifer Lopez and Courtney Cox, and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. Harra predicted Clinton’s turn to politics when she stood by Bill in the background, and told a New York loving Courtney Cox to move to LA where she would quickly land a TV show. Harra’s now turned a zen leaf and her latest book, The Eleven Eternal Principles, talks about how the mind and attitude can affect, even alter one’s life. But I couldn’t resist asking her for some soothsaying about Georgia May!

“Georgia May will try acting,” Harra tells me. “She’ll be back and forth between modeling and acting for a few years, but I don’t see her acting for many years to come. She’s a pretty girl, and she will be very tempted to fall in love and marry a slightly older, wealthy man. After this, she’ll enjoy some private time too.”

Harra also looked into Kate Moss’ career and predicts a couple great years for the Brit icon. “It is her controversy that makes so many people interested in her,” she tells me. “I see her and her boyfriend Jamie very seriously involved and she could have a baby with him.”

So how does she get this psychic buzz? She had a near death accident as child and her dead grandfather spoke to her through a Ouiji board. Since then the native from Dracula’s native land has been tapped in. But Harra stresses we are more in control than we realize. “We need to acknowledge karma,” she tells me. “How we treat others, ourselves, if we respect the universe. Every person should strive to create only good actions because everything anyone does is recorded in the universe, no matter if he/she is an ordinary person or the biggest celebrity.” (For more check out The Eleven Eternal Principles, http://www.amazon.com/Carmen-Harra/e/B001IZTLSI/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1).

Hundreds of kids gather round as Animal Collective deejay’s Fader Mag’s One Step Beyond Party, American Natural History Museum, NYC

Despite frigid temperatures last Friday evening, hundreds of hipsters headed uptown to the American Museum of Natural on Central Park West to hear Fischerspooner and Animal Collective spin tunes. Both groups released albums in the past year. Animal Collective launched Merriweather Post, filled with psychedelic sounds, whoops and hollers. And Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner toured the world and packed another museum — the MOMA — last year with their latest compilation, Entertainment. Fischerspooner debuted their video, “The Best Revenge” before taking the deejay platform.

The party, by Fader Magazine, sold out well in advance with tix for $20 a pop. Girls in black leggings and high boots and boys in flannel swilled wine and beer, circling round to check each other out in the main rotunda, where the deejays took stage.

A few wanderers hoping to sneak into the exhibit rooms to dance and make out under models of dinosaur carcasses were squired away by guards… damn it! But before I got tossed with my date, I did manage to capture this video of Casey Spooner, spinning and singing to the crowd below. Ha ha.

Hudson Double Button Skinny seen in LUCKY.

To describe London in one word this week– COLD. 7.30 start at work meant getting up before the light of day had surfaced the sky. How people do it everyday I will never know (I will most likely get to know in the near future)? This photo was taken at Queen’s Road Peckham station in South London.

So yesterday was Elvis’s birthday. My work (The Breakfast Club) went all out and made a special ‘Elvis burger’ and ‘Elvis shake’ promo. The contents are too hard for me to explain due to a severe hangover from last night. We like to have fun with our business board outside. Today was my turn…

After a 10 hour shift at work, I headed over to South London for a home cooked dinner of Quorn meatballs (not particularly nice) and Quorn mince (particularly nice).  As Tom and I returned back to his, we were followed by a small tabby cat who eventually made her way into the house. She was fun for a while, but hunger was calling. We let her out the back door… Look how sad she was to leave me! We named her ‘Jane’.

Another Saturday night, another Saturday party. What was meant to be a small gathering soon turned out to be not so small after all. A strange mix as well…I walked into the living room. On my right, the typical denim jacket, Doctor Martin-wearing East Londoners. On my right, a group of 10 puffa jacket wearing rude boys Toyosi had invited from the mean streets of Brixton.

One of the guys had great style and got this super photo of him lighting a smoke.

Patti Smith, shot by photographer and current collaborator, Steven Sebring

Last night, a woman with a rare gift for careful verse and visual and musical explosion, Patti Smith, carefully walked around the Robert Miller Gallery in Chelsea with close friends like Michael Stipe and Sam Shepard. At the same time, several sycophants viewed her art and personal effects, which included her paintings, a favorite childhood dress, a white stretcher she had constructed and her favorite chair with a white sheet over it. We could just imagine Patti reading her favorite Arthur Rimbaud poems in that chair!  Intimately mixed in with Patti’s paintings and pieces of nostalgia, photographer/director Steven Sebring, exhibited his photos of Patti and her world.

The Robert Miller Gallery presented the exhibit– entitled “Objects of Life” —  as part two of the debut of Sebring’s documentary, “Patti Smith: Dream of Life” on PBS last week. Sebring initially showed the film at a dozen plus global festivals — including Berlin, Jerusalem, and Sundance — but made a specific decision to go with PBS with this extraordinary film covering a decade of his muses life. The film is scheduled to replay all month throughout the United States.

When I asked bearded long haired Sebring, originally from South Dakota, standing tall in a slick black jacket and hat, why he went with PBS as opposed to Bravo or A&E , he tells me, “I wanted this film to be in every living room in America.”  (It is set to replay several times this month)

And, Patti Smith — musician, writer, painter, photographer — comes from the salt of the earth, USA. Born into a working class family and raised in New Jersey, she worked in a factory well before taking the stage at CBGB’s in the seventies. Now, she’s sixty-three, going strong and still a girl searching the world for experiences. (Patti Smith and Steven Sebring, Objects of Life, Robert Miller Gallery, 524 West 26th Street, January 6-Feb 6, 2010.)