While bottled water is still hard to find and the huge video screens in Shibuya remain dark, some inhabitants of Tokyo are beginning to return to their usual joyous style. One Harajuku fashion plate, pointing to his outrageous shirt and huge pendant, wondered out loud if it’s O.K. to be having fun. In the days after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the city most creative dressers ditched the pastel colors and heels, and Japan Fashion Week canceled its events. Now a sense of normality is creeping back, as more fashion companies re-schedule their shows and Tokyo’s youth put their all-black ensembles in the closet. Said Kento Koizumi as he brushed a streak of Smurf-blue hair out of his eyes, “Tokyo should be strong for the people in Sendai.”          Rebecca Willa Davis, N.Y. Times, 4-17-11

my  revelatory L.A. underworld book, as seen from the angle of the town’s outrageous mob boss, MICKEY COHEN will be released May 1, 2012. An incredible story, covering 6 decades, it’s packed with juicy new revelations, and steaming historical shockers about the likes of RFK, Nixon, Rev. Billy Graham, as well as countless stars (Sinatra, Marilyn, Lana Turner and her lover from Cohen’s gang – who ends up dead in her bedroom – even Shirley Temple) as well as iconic mobsters.

But what next? With the death of Elizabeth Taylor I though about meeting her, in Monte Carlo. She was still amazingly beautiful - and very funny. Maybe a simple book, using silent-screen diva Louise Brooks‘ sublime bestseller LULU IN HOLLYWOOD – just 8 short, intimate stories from her life – could be inspiration and a template. I could recall Andy Warhol, Jim Morrison, Liz, and more mega-legends…capturing in snapshots, my impressions of the icons as they really were.

Elizabeth Taylor

Louise Brooks