Heart Of Gold

Dear Friends,

I suppose I should apologize for the long wait for details of my Heartbreaking Romantic Affairs. I’m not going to, of course- you all already knew that punchline. Instead, I’m going to tell you about what I’ve been doing lately, then I’m going to address that pesky pencil- who now calls itself “Le Crayon”, believe it or not. I’m not a complicated kind of man, hm? I call a Faberge egg a Faberge egg. There’s no pretentions about it, hm? It’s plain, unadorned, and simple. It is not hard to understand. I don’t understand people who pretend to be something else- it’s a bore. You know, I’m over this whole “relationship” business anyway- I don’t need a pencil. I can just project drawings onto the paper. I simply have to look at the paper, and beautifully drawn lines will appear on the paper. Then I glare at the paper some more and the lines are filled in and everybody says “brava!” when I show them the sketches at dinner that night.

I find this to be a much more elegant solution- the pencil thing was a mere formality, something I did for the cameras, really. It is like the queen wearing her crown, or Hitler carrying a gun. Darth Vader using a light saber. Madonna using her voice during concert (everybody knows that Madonna can just think what she wants to sing, and it comes out of the speakers.) But we are in a new era, here- we are in the two thousand and tens. From now on, I shall merely glare. The oppressive pencil-owner relationship is a thing of the past. Really, readers- how many times have you heard someone say “I love it when my pencil gives me cuddles”, or “I want to live with my pencil”. It sickens me. It makes me want to pull out the collars that I’ve swallowed over the years from my throat and toss them at the homeless people on the street- the disgusting homeless people- and then proceed to the parks where people clasp their pencils in their hands and throw my Faberge eggs at them (well, that’s how Russian royalty does an egging). From now on I am not even a one-pencil-man. I abstain. I am a one-man man. I date Karl Lagerfeld, and only Karl Lagerfeld. Even my mirror image is not authentic enough- sure, he’s as good looking as I am, but does he have the quick wit? And I am currently auditioning my shadow on being part of myself. I am very, very serious about this one-man man business, you see. If my shadow is not good enough, I will chop it off with a pair of scissors from the atelier.

In any case- here is the letter from the so-called “Le Crayon”. I screw my nose up to it. In fact, I screw my nose up to all this “couples” nonsense. Pencils and their owners disgust me. Rei Kawakubo does not have a pencil. Nor do I. 

Dearest K,

My thoughts of our Oompa Loompa massacres brought a tear to my metallic embellishments. you know this is not personal. You have always been the one pushing me to the side of your pocket, away from your heart. Do you remember when you snapped three pencils in front of me, to show me what would happen if I didn't perform? Do you remember the week I spent in the bottom of a Vuitton bag in punishment for a less than perfect collection?

You threatened to leave me after you lost all your weight. You told me you were now fit enough to carry around a million of me, that you didn't need me anymore. I put up with a lot from you, K. I stuck with you through fat and thin - it... it almost hurts that you wish me to be ground down to a stub.

It was you who left me at the Four Seasons after cola with Anna. I waited for hours for you. Then, Vivienne found me. I was a mess, I tell you. I had rolled under a table and I was covered with dust and stray hairs. I was almost down the drain before I caught her eye.

Anyway, I'm over that now. Vivienne, she just cares for me. She wraps me in her hair when she's not using me. I can get lost in there for hours. She chews on me when she's thinking - she even writes letters with me, letters. When was the last time you wrote a letter, K?

It is early here, I can hear Vivienne calling. She must have woken up.

Salut K,

Le Crayon

[August 10]: One-night stand

My Faber-Castell pencil, Gramercy Park, New York. Photo Karl Lagerfeld.

Wanted, Wanted, A Pencil in a Daze

Dear Friends,

My spies made a significant discovery as they were doing their regular once-over of my blog (to check for counter-spies, supervillians other than myself, and tourists). They found a note, hidden in the "comments" section, purported to be written by my beloved pencil, which went missing awhile ago. I did not believe it at first, yet the handwriting was unmistakable. It was indeed my P. Plain old P when it was clutched in my hand, Persnickety when I held it tentatively in between my fingers, and Penelope when I visited the offices of M.  The note reads as follows:

Look, Karl, I know you have your minions out looking for me, but I am a pencil in Paris who doesn't want to be found.

I am in the hands of someone else now. You were always too generous with lending me - now I am gone.

Please do not look for me, I will remember you fondly

P.

What can I say? P, you know that's not where you belong- My clothes are never dirty and my hands are always clean, aside from the blood of countless Oompa Loompas. Don't you remember the good times we had? We went to the beach where I took photographs of Claudia- we spent many nights in bed, sketching couture- do you remember our outing to Vermont? Don't let Anna fool you for a second- you're my number one, aside from myself. 

Frankly, I am not going to search for you anymore. I am calling the hounds off. There are a lot more pencils in the jar. Your new owner could grind you down to a mere point with one of those new mechanical pencil-shavers. How would you like that? Could you wear Philip Treacy if you were a stub? Could you dress in fur and ivory from pianos? Think about that, young pencil. 

Pencils and John

Hello Children!
It is Karl!

Today I rung up random people and shouted "CHANEL!!!" into the bit where you talk. Then I licked the bit where you talk forming the Chanel logo. Then I threw the telephone out of the window. THEN I got down to business:

This man:
Mr. Pencil-Stealer. Pencil Thief. My assistants captured him. He's in Anna's closet, locked up with that daughter of hers. Buzz. Queen. Bee- yes, that's it. Bee. I can't imagine that they're getting along too well, Anna says he pretends to be French these days. "Oh I amm zJohn zGalliano, yess". He designs for Dior or something. Dior is so out of date, so stuck in the 1950s. "KEEP THE WAIST IN! ZE WOMEN IS AN HOURGLASS." He forgot to mention that the customers of Dior are all over 50, hmm? For the couture, anyway. (Which I design- they're jokes I share with Rei. We send each other ridiculous designs and people like John pick up on them and steal them. This is the basis of most couture today, hmm?).

So after much interrogation "I do not have zis pencil you speak of", "what pencil??" "I do not speak zee English", we got the pencil back. In is now back in allied hands. The world can rest at peace again.

(And yes, astute readers. I have had my pencil taken away before-as you may notice if you read back far enough. The pencil is very important, hmm? Martin Margiela sells a replica of it for $5000, on demand only)

Pencil Stolen!

The last few days have been hell, hm? I am not joking. You see, I lost my pencil- that's why I haven't been updating this. I only write blog entries in pencil for an assistant to type up, and only this one pencil. Nothing else is satisfactory.

So I couldn't write blog entries. I couldn't even design. I sat outside my window and watched the young people do their thing while a taskforce of everyone at Chanel in Paris looked for the pencil. I do like watching the young people. I didn't eat, I didn't move.

I think this pencil has special powers, to be honest. When I tell people this they just go "oh Karl, you are so crazzzzzy" and laugh. Like I'm making a joke. I can't tell you what those special powers are because then they wouldn't be special, would they now?

They're pretty good, though. Trust uncle Karl.

Anyway, someone finally found it today. I'm pretty sure an operative of some rival company tried to steal it now that I'm not throwing out old sketches for them to steal. Like they could work my pencil!

So I'm having the security around here tightened up. Nobody gets in or out without my approval, hmmm?