boy culture

Tools Of The Trade

Underwear designer Andrew Christian celebrated his birthday—hosted by Project Runway alum Nick Verreos—surrounded by his work. Many more images to be found here. Happy whatever you're turning, Andrew!

Stolen Glances

Theft bites.

Condé Nast Portfolio is a magazine that will never last, so love it while you can—it's smart and saturated with things you never knew. I'm hardly a businessman, but it truly makes me interested in business, man. It's top-notch. One of the less explicitly "dollars-and-cents" pieces in its December 2007 issue is "The Gallery Of Stolen Art" by Richard B. Woodward, in which several stolen works of art are profiled. It's insane to think that people would steal noted works of art because there would be so little resale value and such high risk. Worse, imagine that some of the works might be discarded and/or destroyed in order to eliminate evidence of the pointless crime, or—in the case of a two-ton, $6 million-dollar Henry Moore sculpture—a work could be melted down to harvest its medium (bronze).

Portrait Of Francis Bacon by Lucian Freud, 1952, stolen in 1988, now worth "at least $7 million."

Of these items shown, the most valuable is probably at the top of this post—Lioness Attacking A Nubian, an ivory plaque from 720 B.C., had been housed at the National Museum in Baghdad. You know the place; it's the institution we totally forgot about when the U.S. invaded Iraq, allowing about 14,000 works of art to be looted. Its value? Priceless. And "priceless" means business when you consider another work (The Concert by Vermeer, 1664/1667, pictured embedded in the first paragraph, stolen in 1990) is listed as being worth "at least $100 million."

The Adoration Of The Shepherds With Saints Lawrence And Francis by Caravaggio, 1609, stolen in 1969, now worth "at least $80 million."

View Of The Sea At Scheveningen by van Gogh, 1884, stolen in 2002, now worth "at least $10 million."

Congregation Leaving The Reformed Church In Nuenen by van Gogh, 1882, stolen in 2002, "at least $10 million."

I Can't Remember When I Was Young

I guess I deserve it.

Talk about sour grapes!

Even though Madonna has loyally recorded for Warner Bros. for 25 years, generating I assume billions of dollars in sales, now that she is leaving them in a very professional, above-board way, for a sweet Live Nation deal, they've issued a statement saying she is unworthy of that deal. Either the report or Variety's reporting on the report calls attention to the fact that she will turn 60 in the final year of that 10-year pact.

Madonna is a woman who, at 25, endured the taunts of critics saying, "What are you gonna do when you're 40? Still be singing 'Like A Virgin?'" Yes. Next question.

Madonna has proven that her appeal and—more importantly—the appeal of her music is ageless. Madonna's fans are not, nor were they ever, horny businessmen clamoring around a stripper pole. Sex is as major a part of Madonna's work as it is a part of everyone's lives, but it is not her only draw. And besides, are people in their fifties and beyond supposed to be instantly unsexy and/or asexual? I'm sure a lot of the brass at Warner Bros. and at the bank who issued the catty report are older than 49 and some are probably older than 60.

Will I grow old?

Marlene Dietrich, Peggy Lee, Tina Turner—these are women who had highly successful careers touring with or without multi-platinum albums. Madonna has as much stamina as all of them and, if I may be so bold, far more creativity as a writer and as a conceptual artist. And that's only to compare her to some famous old-lady crooners—if you want to bring up the men, who are probably more exact comparisons to Madonna in many ways, it's almost too easy to find examples that gather no moss.

Madonna is forward-thinking. She has proven that time and again, first by openly detesting some of her earlier hits, then with her famous "absolutely no regrets" mantra and always by taking her albums to unexpected places. Now, despite showing some signs of mellowing (her latest tours and one-off live gigs tend to throw us dogs some old bones from her catalog), Madonna is very aggressively and bravely casting off the comforts of a traditonal recording contract in order to cast off its increasing limitations, committing herself to recording and more remarkably touring throughout her fifties in a bid to stay relevant, provocative, productive. That's not putting out classic ’70s songs tributes, Broadway salutes and best-of after best-of—that's dynamism, baby.

Simply put: There is no telling where Madonna will be with her music, her art, in 2018, but as Condé Nast Portfolio points out in this excellent post, she and Live Nation will certainly be in the black.

That is why it's really extra-embarrassing for Warner Bros. to snark on Madonna's age and on her viability as a recording artist. There is every reason to believe that Madonna will be standing tall in 2018...does anyone seriously believe Warner Bros. Records will be?

Madonna is not too old for the recording industry—the recording industry is too old for Madonna.

The power of good-bye.