The Wit of the Staircase

Bad News At The Chelsea Hotel

"We have talked to a source who has spoken with the Bards. They have been forced out of their management role. As far as we know they still retain their ownership share.

Stanley Bard took over operation of the hotel from his father, David Bard, in the mid-1950s. (By the way, today, June 16, is Stanley Bard's 73rd birthday. How weird is that?) Stanley has always managed to keep the rents at least somewhat affordable for the writers and artists in residence, but now his partners (represented by a board of director) have forced him and his son out of their management roles. This certainly means the end of an era for the hotel.

We have been hearing rumors since early 2006 that the board was putting pressure on Stanley to make the hotel more profitable..."

Link: Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog.

Interview with Wit about our time in the legendary Chelsea: Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog: Mad Man Serenades As Lovers Entwine.

Link: Hotel Chelsea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Sunday Is World Cocktail Day

Link: World Cocktail Day - 2007.

Via: Coudal Partners.

10 Famous Literary Bars

Eagle and Child, Oxford
Literary Patrons: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien

CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien spent many an hour in deep discussion in the Rabbit Room at the Eagle and Child. Every Tuesday morning, these two luminaries held meetings of the Inklings, a literary group consisting of fellow writers in the Oxford community. Although the group began gathering across the way at the Lamb and Flag pub in 1962, the Rabbit Room remains the favorite spot for literary fans.

Link: 10 Famous Literary Bars | ForbesTraveler.com.

Wet Red Wit

"Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever."

--Aristophanes

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Huge amounts of a red wine extract seemed to help obese mice eat a high-fat diet and still live a long and healthy life, suggests a new study that some experts are calling "landmark" research. The big question is, can it work the same magic in humans? Scientists say it's far too early to start swilling barrels of red wine. But they are calling the latest research promising and even 'spectacular'."

Link: Study: Fat, boozing mice stay healthy - CNN.com.

Wherein Miss Marple Dissects A Case Over Tea At A Seaside Hotel

“The pleasures of afternoon tea run like a trickle of honey through English literature from Rupert Brooke's wistful lines on the Old Vicarage at Grantchester to Miss Marple, calmly dissecting a case over tea cakes at a seaside hotel.”

--Stan Hey

Continuing our Labor Day beach theme, we present a slideshow of British seaside hotels, below.

These remind Wit mainly of dreary Morrissey lyrics and the wonderful film Funny Bones, which depicts the drama of a family of American and British comedians' fading stars and changing fortunes amid the lights of Blackpool.

Link: BBC NEWS | In Pictures | Buildings that bless the seaside.

Above, The Grand Hotel in Scarborough was one of the largest in Europe when it was built in 1867.

"Your Startled Reaction At Discovering The Sun Has Risen"

I discovered this drink accidentally, at The Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard, out by the old David Hockney-painted swimming pool, when a bottle of vodka and six cans of re'bel were sent to our table gratis by the bartender.

Of all the things we write about here, Wit's penchant for cocktails is the least popular. But for a certain sort of evening, the potion below is one I can confidentally suggest. I did no table top dancing, but there certainly wasn't any easing into the arms of morpheus until sunup.

"Many clubgoers under 30 could probably rattle off a list of the things that mixing vodka with energy drinks like Red Bull has done for, or rather, to them, with likely a few winces of blurred regret. But tragicomic 3 a.m. banquette-dancing isn’t what Mr. Sherman-Rose is talking about."

Link: Jet Fuel, With a Twist - New York Times.

The Future An Experiment At 222

“For the majority of us, the past is a regret, the future an experiment” wrote former Chelsea Hotel resident Mark Twain. After our post about the disappearance of The Gramercy Park Hotel earlier today, we received an email from the wonderful Chelsea Hotel blog below, whose fears for The Chelsea mirror our own.

Link: Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog: Schrager and Schnabel Build Hotel From Old Mushroom Crates.

Careful readers will remember that The Chelsea is where Mr. and Mlle. Staircase first made the beast with two backs (along with other origami creatures) in the first days of January, 1996: Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog: Mad Man Serenades As Lovers Entwine.

Ugh.

We lived in the divey Gramercy Park Hotel for two months when it had the great dim bar with the Goldfish crackers and Citronella candles and ancient red jacketed waiters. Then there were the old people who lived in wallpaper-peeling monthly apartments with blaring TV's and awful catfood smells. One would encounter them unexpectedly, like Jack Nicholson's ghouls in The Overlook. I bet somebody does this sort of hatchet job on the Chelsea Hotel next...

"The Gramercy Park was designed by the artist Julian Schnabel with rich baroque colors, voluptuous forms and show-stopping contemporary art. When you walk in past the graceful brownstones of leafy Gramercy Park, you see an enormous Cy Twombly painting to the right, a Richard Prince to the left, and a magnificent Aubusson carpet hand-woven to Schnabel's design in deep reds, blues and pinks."

Link: A comeback, and a new luxe - Style - International Herald Tribune.

You know we're going to wind up staying in the renovated one, too, such are our internal contradictions and lapses of taste. But after all, a Staircase heads both up and down, mes amis.

Glad to hear that Richard Prince has made it to the status lobby art, too. Are the Baby Boomers and their last-minute Nixon nostalgia dead yet? And yet I love the combined Schrager/Schnabel ego, which must be breaking records all over Manhattan.

100 Greatest Punk Songs (As Echoed Through An Empty Detroit Ballroom)

I spent more time in Detroit's downtown City Club than any other bar or club in the world. Located near the river in the Leland House Hotel, it is still open and catering to goths and punks and gays after more than 20 years.

The flyer above is for a Bad Brains show there. The Bad Brains are listed on the "100 Greatest Punk Songs" link directly below, with the link below that featuring more flyers from Detroit punk shows during my heyday there in the mid- to late-1980s.

The Leland House used to be a gigantic dump of faded grandeur with round pink settees and chandeliers and brocade wallpaper where many old people lived. The City Club (also dramatically known as "Liedernacht" or "night songs" in the mid-80s) was in the Leland's giant former grand ballroom, with gilt mirrors and chandeliers and black and white tile floors that showed up only when the occassional strobe light began to flash.

We used to take an elevator up to the roof and stare out over the city. I remember passionately kissing a young man I met at the City Club up there. Bad Brains are from D.C., where I subsequently moved, but Negative Approach were Detroit local.

Link: 100 Greatest Punk Rock Songs.

Link: Flyers V.

The Green Fairy: The Los Angeles Lunar Society's Contraband Christmas

"Then the third angel sounded: And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died from the water, because it was made bitter." --The Apocalypse of St. John

Wormwood, whose extract used to be a popular ingredient in many perfumes, has a strong floral and herbal flavor (and scent) that is heightened when extracted by proper distillation. Wormwood's active agent thujone is the primary ingredient in absinthe that is supposed to cause the violence and hallucinations that eventually got it banned.

With this in mind, we have been searching for six months for a large enough supply of absinthe for the Los Angeles Lunar Society Christmas party, which will take place on the night of the full moon, Thursday, December 15th at our Malibu clubhouse. [Brief aside to new initiates: you think you are the only one who thinks it is funny to give your Secret Santa a sex toy, but FYI, one year we had an actual pile of them, and guess who the neighbors saw carrying three dildos out to the dumpster the next day? That's right, yours truly, the Lunar Society's straight-laced librarian, registrar and sergeant-at-arms. So give a dildo if you must, but know that there are enough dicks in the Los Angeles Lunar Society already and that you will be disposing of any superfluous ones yourself.]

Since we Lunarians are big paraphenalia buffs, we have purchased many antique silver collectors' absinthe spoons with our holiday party funds. These gorgeous implements are used to hold the sugar cube that we will drizzle water onto and into the gorgeous green liquid resting in the bottom of our glasses. A particularly lovely specimen from our new collection is pictured above. Should be an apocalyptic Lunar Christmas party this year. Thanks to Lunar member Edward W. for donating the money for the absinthe spoons, glasses and carafes, and to Eleanor for donating the geese we will roast on the beach under pleine lune.

Some nights the wolves are silent and only the moon howls, it has been said, and we certainly don't expect any less. See you Thursday.