Simon Schama, Professor of Art History, Columbia University

“I first came to New York in 1964…The city was more garish, grungier, louder and crazier then I’d ever imagined. I remember being shocked by how raw and unappealing it was and then five minutes later thinking, ‘This is absolutely fucking wonderful’”

If I were to do a quick straw poll amongst my friends, asking them where they’d want to live other than (or instead of) London, I have no doubt about which place would come out on top. New York City is the desired living destination for millions of people from all over the world, for reasons both self-evident and intangible.

New York is vibrant, exciting, fast-paced. It is convenient, consumer-oriented, accessible. It can be both breathtakingly glamorous and archaically seedy. But perhaps most importantly, New York is a place with a special, physical kind of energy that consumes you whether you want it to or not. The times I’ve spent in New York, which have ranged from seven days to nine weeks, have been some of the most dynamic periods of my life. Things changed. Shit got done. I always came back a slightly different person.

I think British people love New York because it represents something thrillingly foreign in terms of its work culture – the mythology of opportunity, the encouragement of ambition – but also reassuringly familiar shared cultural and historical references, as well as, of course, a common language. A phenomenal new photoseries by Jason Bell, entitled ‘An Englishman In New York’ portrays the lives of expats living in the city, and offers up their thoughts on their lives in the Big Apple. Bell has photographed a fascinating range of Brits, from singer Estelle to historian Simon Schama to Vogue Editor-At-Large Hamish Bowles, and the results are not only really beautiful, but also revelatory.

See the full series here – or better yet, in person, at the National Portrait Gallery from August 24th to April 17th, 2011

The view from Soho House

Where to start? The past week has been a blur of pools, beaches, shops, cafés, restaurants, hotels, warehouses, rooftops, hilltops, margaritas, bellinis, vodka tonics, vegan food, junk food, hip hop, death metal, UK funky house (inexplicably), dogs, cats that like to climb into bags, car rides, taxi rides, bus rides and walking in a place where no one else walks.

L.A. is like nowhere else. It sprawls out further and wider that any city I think I’ve ever visited, or at least it feels that way. Every destination requires a twenty minute car ride, and every neighbourhood feels completely different from the last. The city strikes a strange balance between clean and dirty living – in the day it’s egg white omelettes and acai shakes with spirulina boosters. At night it’s flowing alcohol, drunk driving, and house parties galore (a necessity in a city where all clubs shut down at 2am). Things get done noticeably more slowly than in London, and no-one seems to be overly stressed. The pace and style of life has taken a little while to adjust to, but after seven days I can say that I definitely like it. I like it a lot.

Lots more photos when you click the link.

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I’m generally ambivalent about Terry Richardson as a photographer but I can’t deny his Diary features some pretty interesting subject matter. From the relentlessly glamorous Carine Roitfeld, to the surprisingly diminutive Christina Hendricks, to the ever-compelling Michael K. Williams aka Omar from ‘The Wire’, it’s all there. Check it out.

Olivier Zahm

I love magazines. Really love them. I’m always interested in reading any kind of informed opinion on them. Here’s a quote from Olivier Zahm, founder of Purple Fashion Magazine, from the new issue of i-D:

“The internet sphere is amnesia: information arrives and disappears, arrives and disappears. Magazines always touch me because there shows a true love for the present time,  an historical trace of what’s going on by year, or by decade. You can pick up an issue of Interview magazine from 1974 and understand the 70s in New York, but you can’t figure out what 2007 was like by going to a website from 2007, because it has disappeared. I know there is love inside a magazine. There is a collective voice of people who want to share something.

There are two reasons for magazines on paper. First it’s the glamour and to me real glamour comes from photography and interviews. This is because it is the place where people get intimate. The fashion world is organically a part of magazines – it’s the best place for fashion to be seen, appreciated and evaluated. And secondly I think magazines need to survive because magazines are intimate, it’s one person to one person. It’s me to you. The photographer shot this model, with this stylist, for you. It’s like a film; everyone is working together to achieve a certain vision, of the time, of the fashion. So when the reader opens a magazine immediately they are part of the world.

A magazine has presence, it reveals something about people, about their dreams, it’s on paper, you can keep it and it gives you this possibility to interact…Purple is my life.”

This month’s i-D also features a great Rihanna interview by the marvellous Ms. Hattie Collins, and lots of other good shit. Go cop that.

In case you’ve missed the virtual hype, ‘How To Make It In America’ is a new HBO show that aired in the US for the first time last week. I managed to catch the first episode via the wonders of the Interwebz and from what I can gather, it’s a sort of ‘Entourage’-in-The-Big-Apple thing (and is actually produced by the same people) – but instead of tracking the exploits of a famous actor, it follows a pair of young, down-on-their-luck New Yorkers who decide to fight ‘the man’ by setting up an independent, premium denim label.

So basically, ‘How To Make It In America’ is a TV programme about the downtown NY creative ’scene’, albeit with a glossy, major-network spin on proceedings. It’s spliced with series of SLR photo-style freeze screens, set to a trendy hip-hop soundtrack, and features appearances and cameos from NY scenesters such as Kid Cudi and Roxy Cottontail. Watching it feels like seeing the corporate version of a hipster blog, realised in celluloid. It’s very watchable, but also strangely unsettling. The boundaries between reality, TV and the Internet are blurring so much that I wonder if one day we’ll even be able to tell the difference between them.

Trailer after the jump.

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Remember when I said I didn’t like end of year/decade ‘Best Of’ lists? Well, I guess I was lying to you – and myself – because I’ve found another such compilation I wanted to share: Interview magazine’s ‘Twenty Most Beautiful People of The Decade’. Not exactly the most meaningful way of looking back at the last ten years, but then who doesn’t like looking at photos of people who are like, really, really, ridiculously good looking? (Name that film.)

If you’re not familiar with Interview magazine then I definitely suggest picking up a copy next time you’re at a store that sells international publications (although fuck knows where that will be now Borders has closed down. RIP.) If was started by Andy Warhol in 1969 and its format is basically just famous-person-interviewed-by-famous-person Q&As, accompanied by beautiful and artistic photography. Celebrity voyeurism on a hundred, thousand, trillion.

More photos and a link to the full feature after the jump.

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