Dreaming of jeans and other things...

Many of you remarked this week about how much you enjoyed Anderson's snarky attitude. Our puzzle is combination of two shots of Anderson "cutting up".

AC having fun A Jigsaw Puzzle

I know some of you Anderson fans are also fans of his famous mother, Gloria Vanderbilt. Phebe and I came across some interesting GV articles and photo's we thought you might enjoy.

Do you remember Anderson telling the story about how he and Carter made a game of counting people on the street they saw wearing jeans with their mother's name on the backside? I'll bet some of you actually remember those jeans and may have even owned an "original" pair. They were the rage of the 80’s. Look familiar?

And this picture immediately reminded me of Anderson's story. I believe it is from one of the original jean ads and is definitely an attention getter.



Gloria also made the news this week when she participated in a series on psychoanalysis relating to the work of Carl Jung.

The New York Social Diary had this to say:

Those in attendance last night at The Rubin Museum of Art (on West 17th Street) were treated to a spiritually and intellectually stimulating evening with fabled heiress/artist and author Gloria Vanderbilt.

The event, which paired Ms. Vanderbilt with Dr. Andrea Fiuza Hunt, a psychoanalyst trained in the methods of legendary Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, is one of a series of psychoanalyses commemorating the first-ever publication of The Red Book of C. G. Jung.

After introducing Jung's book and explaining the momentous nature of its publication -- for fear of its impact, Jung specified that The Red Book not be published for at least twenty years after his death, the Director of Programming at The Rubin, Tim McHenry, showed Ms. Vanderbilt and Ms. Hunt to the stage.

The mechanics of the analysis were simple: Ms. Vanderbilt was shown an image created by C. G. Jung (a vibrant Gustav Klimt-esque illustration of what the heiress likened to "an egg") and then haltingly voiced her emotional reactions to the work's multifarious figures.

An overriding theme of "growth-from-tragedy," was the response to the illustration. Vanderbilt and Hunt used phrases like "harmonious," "hopeful," and "Yin-and-yang."

The audience bore in mind that the Vanderbilt family name, usually associated with the vast wealth accrued from shipping and railroad interests by Cornelius Vanderbilt -- known as The Commodore -- during the industrial revolution, is not infrequently linked to tragedy. The Commodore's namesake Cornelius J. Vanderbilt's suicide in 1882 (at the time, a highly publicized scandal) seems to have indelibly stained his lineage with misfortune.

Gloria Vanderbilt's life has been fraught by highly publicized misfortune since childhood. Her father Reginald gambled and drank his way through his enormous inheritance and died at 43. Her fourth and last husband, Wyatt Cooper, died tragically during surgery in 1978 and one of her sons, Carter Vanderbilt Cooper (brother of CNN analyst Anderson Cooper), committed suicide in 1988.

Throughout the evening, Ms. Vanderbilt, by all accounts an effervescent socialite in her heyday, was not to be dragged down. Though the audience was rapt with the silence of the auditorium punctuated by the occasional laughter at Ms. Vanderbilt's witticisms.

"This little figure reminds me of E.T.," she stated simply in response to the depiction of a snake-like creature with fangs. When Ms. Hunt suggested that Ms. Vanderbilt extrapolate upon her idea of herself as "the egg," Vanderbilt countered with: "I believe it was Alan Watts who said, 'Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.'"

Vanderbilt was only momentarily upstaged when the audience was invited (albeit by she herself) to join the discussion. Brigid Berlin, famous for being one of Andy Warhol's Factory people spoke lengthily from her seat about how the image reminded her of the Rockettes and (perhaps in a less opaque, egg-related association) Carl Faberge.

Following Vanderbilt recaptured her audience with mention of a recurring dream of three people sleeping together in a bed.

"Did you see who they were?" someone asked in relation to the mysterious trio.

"No," she replied definitively, "But, I have my suspicions... but let's not go there."

These photo's accompanied the article in NYSD:






And David Foxley wrote this article for Vanity Fair:

The first snake Gloria Vanderbilt ever met belonged to her son Anderson Cooper, who called the creature Sam. One day, sitting by the pool, Vanderbilt recalls, a young Anderson looked down at his slithering pal and asked, ‘“Oh, Sam—is this all just a dream?”’

Vanderbilt—the heiress, writer, actress, and artist—was reminiscing aloud to a full auditorium last night at the Rubin Museum of Art, in New York City. She was a featured guest in “The Red Book Dialogues,” the museum’s series of discussions dedicated to the vast body of work produced by Carl Jung, the late Swiss psychiatrist and the father of analytical psychology. Among the other participants in the Rubin series, which concludes on January 24, are David Byrne, Alice Walker, Cornel West, and John Patrick Shanley, to name only a few.

After mounting the stage, Vanderbilt was handed a covered image from the famous The Red Book, which is full of Jung’s illustrations paired with text. Vanderbilt had never seen the book before. Sitting across from Vanderbilt was psychoanalyst Andrea Fiuza Hunt, who was on hand to walk her guest through the Jungian experience, hopefully enlightening Vanderbilt, and her audience, in the process.
“I come to this like an egg newly hatched,” Vanderbilt told the crowd as the conversation started. As she opened the book, a projector covered the large wall behind the dais with a Jung image—a kaleidoscopic, otherworldly landscape in the shape of an egg; below a bright star at the egg’s apex were a turtle, a snake, and a creature that was, in various turns, a rhino, a lion, and a “beast-thing.”
After asking Vanderbilt, a remarkably youthful 85, to describe her initial reaction to the image before her—“point to where you feel the star on your body”—Hunt encouraged her guest to initiate a dialogue with an orange snake peeking up from the egg’s lower line. “Who are you?” Vanderbilt asked the painted snake, after a pause.

Talk turned to dreams and fantasies, two things that have long fascinated Vanderbilt. And she described meeting God, twice, after being given nitrous oxide during the births of her sons—a “gateway to the fourth dimension,” she said of the gas. Vanderbilt also spoke of hypnagogic hallucinations, which she thought realer than real, and two recurring dreams: one involving three unknown figures lying in a French sleigh bed, and another more sinister dream about her late husband, Wyatt Cooper, in which he’s alive and unreachable. “I dream a lot,” she said.

VF Daily called Vanderbilt to follow up on the event. And after a few bars of “Come Fly Away” played while we were on hold, our party was reached at last.

VF Daily: When did you first become interested in the work of Carl Jung?

Gloria Vanderbilt: I’ve been interested all my life, really. Ever since I can remember. I wish that it had come to pass that he had been my therapist. He’s the only therapist that deals really in fantasy and dreams, and in that area.

When did you first start seeing an analyst?

I was interested in finding out things about myself. I actually don’t believe in therapy now. My therapist, who subsequently lost his medical license, and also my lawyer—they defrauded me of my business [nearly $2 million], and it was quite an experience. And also I’ve come to the point where I really know enough about myself that life is good, you know?

You said several times on stage that the image of the egg was not negative or menacing. I wonder, since you saw yourself as that image, if you are a generally happy person.

What’s happy?

Content.

Well, the rainbow comes and goes.

Does it go more often than come?

It depends on the sort of time slot one is in. It’s hard to answer that question, really.

And you said you don’t believe in God—capital “g”—but instead in a collective energy.

I think it’s a very Zen belief, and a belief that we’re all connected—that our energy is all connected. And that when we die, we become part of the collective consciousness and energy, and then we are reborn again—not within the identity that we had when we died, but we continue to be reborn as part of that collective energy.

As opposed to the postcard image of God, as you said, that you might find in a prayer book?

I was raised as Catholic, and when I went through religious training, I became very fascinated by Saint Theresa, because there was something very fascinating about the image of her always holding a bouquet of roses. And there’s something very charismatic about her, like a movie-star sort of thing. She captured my imagination, so I was very religious in the sense of formalized religion at the time, growing up, but I’ve long strayed. [Laughs.]

Given all the focus that Jung puts on images and signs and symbols and their meaning for an individual, I thought it might be fun if we did a brief game of word association—if I said a word, and perhaps you could say what pops into mind. Would that be all right?

Sure!

The first word is “love.”

[Long pause.] Actually the word that comes to mind is “love.”

Great. And do you see an image, or is it just the word itself?

I see love as the most important thing, and I don’t think any image can describe love except love.

Right. Tree.

Me.

Home.

Family.

Youth.

Beauty.

Sex.

Joy.

Lasagna.

Yummy!

Onto your book, Obsession—the reaction has been pretty incredible.

I think so, yes.

Has it been an enjoyable experience since it came out?

Oh, yes.

In The New York Times article from June, you mentioned that you had two very Waspy friends who sort of disapproved of you writing an erotic novel. Are they still your friends?

Yes, they are two of my dearest, close friends, and they had love and concern for me after reading an earlier draft. They cautioned that, if published, it could ruin my reputation, so I restrained myself from saying, ‘Oh, goody!’

Has anyone else surprised you since the book came out—any unexpected reactions from friends, acquaintences, or family members?

My son Anderson Cooper was very supportive from the beginning, as he is with everything I do … I am really just thrilled with the response it’s gotten.

The two of you remain very close, it seems.

Yes.

That’s wonderful. The book is so charged with energy, I wonder what your secret is—to be able to maintain this incredible sensuality and sharpness, this joie de vivre.

Enthusiasm … I was just ready to write this book, and the gun went off, and I wrote it. And there it is.

Do you have any practical advice for creative individuals, or anyone, in fact?

I think you trust yourself, love yourself, and all will be well. I think it’s important to have an image of what you’re striving for and what you’re working towards—what you’re hoping to be. I want to be the best I can be for as long as I can.

Photo by Michael J Palma for Vanity Fair:



And Phebe sent me this portrait of Gloria by Aaron Shikler. This romantic and glamorous shot just seems to be the perfect ending for a blog about Gloria and her dreams.



Glad to be back with you and hope you all have a wonderful week.

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All Things Anderson is a blog dedicated to CNN's AC360 and its host Anderson Cooper.