BlackBook Magazine

A sable, a mink, and a chinchilla walk into a bar. Bemelmans Bar, at the Carlyle Hotel. Sable says to the mink, “Should we have another?” And the mink says, “No, I really should be going.” The chinchilla orders a gin and tonic. We don’t get it, but then we’re unused to the altitude, high up on 76th street. Our brandy arrives, neat, in a prime tumbler, somehow accent-lit, and there are cashews and, looking around, everything is right in the world–this one, anyway.

Today they appear like two-eyed anthropological finds, but some people—like photographer Lyle Owerko—aren't ready to trade in their boomboxes for an iPod.

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I’ve been collecting these since I was in my teens,” says self-confessed pop-culture junkie Lyle Owerko, indicating the phalanx of boomboxes in his SoHo apartment. “They’re from all over the world—Calgary, Japan, thrift stores in Los Angeles, flea markets in Africa. And some I bought from the stores that usually sold them, back when.” Owerko has been a devotee of youth culture, and of music, from the moment he feasted his eyes on the album art of his first record purchase, at 11 years old: Ted Nugent’s Scream Dream. “It was an epiphany,” he says. The “Nuge” has that effect.

A-B-C, easy as 1-2-3? Not quite. Janet Jackson has always stood alone from those other five singing siblings (including the one who brokered Neverland from J.M. Barrie). But with her new album, Discipline, the beautiful, elusive performer steps forward—again—into her own spotlight (and cage). And that S&M headgear isn't slowing her one bit. Michael Ruffino gets in line.

Top by Polymorphe, skirt by House of Harlot, gloves by Syren, stockings by Agent Provocateur, boots by Giuseppe Zanotti.

Photography by Matthew Rolston
Styling by Jeanine McKirnan

Within a labyrinthine photo studio in Culver City, California, in a whitewashed room, otherwise unremarkable, a B & D fetishist’s arsenal is displayed as if arranged for a tradeshow by the Marquis de Sade. The gear, close to a type once reserved for “correcting” “scolds,” “shrewish women,” recalcitrant serfs, and persons confusing to the Church, is all laid out for use on Janet Jackson. Her recent album, for which she is currently touring, is called Discipline.

Fear and loafing in the United Nations’ Delegates Lounge.

At 7 p.m. we were virtually sailing though a watery but grandpa-perfect $6 Stolichnaya and soda, securely situated in the United Nations’ Delegates Lounge. It’s down the hall from the General Assembly, just off the aptly named Hall of Flags. The place is a remnant, a temple of jet-age treachery and cigarettes. Unsurprisingly, it isn’t accessible to the unescorted civilian. But guests of members are welcome to don a fez, a monocle, a set of official-looking epaulets, and come.

“Most people never get to see the Great Wall of China bath towel,” says the U.S. Mission’s rakish Deputy Spokesman to the United Nations, Ben Chang, a.k.a. DJ Hong Kong Hefner. He gestures absently toward the most gargantuan needlepoint we’ve ever seen (which may not be saying much, we realize), running the expanse of the south wall. In fact, such things hang all over the U.N.’s interiors.

Manhattan mostly snubs the time-honored suburban tradition of discounted drinks at the appointed (read: dead) hours of late afternoon. But that isn't stopping our budget-challenged bard from finding where 'the ladies' (or bums in drag) drink for free! (Echo that last word like they do at monster truck shows).

Happy Hour, we’re told, has naval origins, referring to on-board entertainment—USO and so forth. Over the years, the phrase has evolved from denoting a civilized evening at the end of a respectable day to—according to some authorities—a havoc-inducing and dangerous promotional scheme, a common booze-frenzy. Where sense and taste have failed there are regulations these days, such as moratoriums on buckets, and the whole thing is banned outright in otherwise reasonable states; and for bars where it matters, discounted liquor doesn’t exactly keep the riff-raff out. “Happy Hour” seems to be disappearing.

In New York, where the $13 well margarita lurks, a cheap drink is appreciated as much as anywhere else—more, in fact. We went looking for some spots where happy hour is alive, and, well, happy.

The 'Big Love' star instructs on Hollyweird, potato bugs, ‘obnoxious lesbian’ neighbors, and those pesky sex scenes with 'Bill.'

BLACKBOOK: Did you have style while you were growing up?

CHLOË SEVIGNY: Absolutely! Pretty much from kindergarten on I wouldn’t let my mother dress me. I had very specific tastes, and refused to put on anything she wanted me to wear. I was really into clothes, often kind of outrageous, not quite typical kid-wear, like hats and things. My father used to take me into the city, to Macy’s, or Saks, to go shopping—I was Daddy’s girl, so those were really important days. He’d been a military man, so all of his outfits were very crisp. And beyond that he had some serious style. Fedoras, trenchcoats—very classic. He even wore those straps [garters] that hold your socks up. There was just something about that generation. He used to tell me how much he liked women in hats, so I would wear hats more and more often, because I knew he liked me in them.