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After decades of obscurity, Eve Babitz—the marvelous polymath of pleasure and gifted annalist of the delights and despair of Los Angeles, where she was born in 1943 and still resides—was suddenly everywhere. The Babitz revival began in early October 2015, with the reissue of her first book, Eve’s Hollywood (1974), the celebrated eight-page dedication of which is dotted with the names of various SoCal demiurges of the 1960s and early ’70s who made up her milieu. They included, among many others, several artists associated with the Ferus Gallery (including Ed Ruscha; Babitz is featured in his Five 1965 Girlfriends), Linda Ronstadt (for whom Babitz designed album covers), and Jim Morrison (another lover). Since then, her four other memoirs (masquerading under the name “fiction”) have been republished: Slow Days, Fast Company (1977), Sex and Rage (1979), L.A. Woman (1982), and Black Swans (1993). Hulu is developing a series based on the first four books, to be called LA Woman. She is a popular hashtag on Instagram.

Catalyzing the renewal of interest in the cult author was a feature in the March 2014 issue of Vanity Fair by Lili Anolik, her first article for the magazine, titled “All About Eve—and Then Some.” Anolik, now a contributing editor at the Condé Nast monthly, has expanded that piece into a bumptious book-length profile. I haven’t used the word biography, for Anolik doesn’t care for the term. “Hollywood’s Eve isn’t a biography—at least not in the traditional sense,” she declares, in the very first sentence. By the fourth, she grabs us by the lapels and sets us straight: “Here’s what Hollywood’s Eve is: a biography in the nontraditional sense; a case history as well as a cultural; a critical appreciation; a sociological study; a psychological commentary; a noir-style mystery; a memoir in disguise; and a philosophical investigation as contrary, speculative, and unresolved as its subject. Here’s what Hollywood’s Eve is above all else: a love story. The lover, me. The love object, Eve Babitz, the louche, wayward, headlong, hidden genius of Los Angeles.” But is this book really a reflection of Anolik’s amour fou—or amour-propre, an intoxication with her own mannerist way of writing?

This grandiose style works well—or can work well—for a text in the five-thousand-word range; it exhausts and exasperates when deployed in a book close to three hundred pages (I was depleted after the first paragraph). It is also jarringly at odds with that of the writer being lionized. Babitz, a sybarite with a sinuous sensibility, casually festoons her prose with offbeat aphorisms, like this one, from Sex and Rage: “People go through life eating lamb chops and breaking their mother’s hearts.” Her “I” is simultaneously vigorous and nonchalant. “I did not become famous but I got near enough to smell the stench of success,” she writes in Slow Days, Fast Company, alluding to the period right after Eve’s Hollywood was published.

Anolik inserts herself much less gracefully. A belabored section that aims to knock down Joan Didion—who, along with husband John Gregory Dunne, was an early champion of Eve’s—and boost Babitz as the quintessential chroniclerof Southern California concludes with a tantrum: “I think Play It [as It Lays] is a silly, shallow book. I think Slow Days should replace it, become the new essential reading for young women (and young men) seeking to understand L.A. There. I said it.” My response to this rhetorical fillip was the same as Didion’s in an infamous 1979 letter exchange with a reader miffed over her takedown of Woody Allen in the New York Review of Books: Oh, wow.

As for the “Secret History” teased in the subtitle of Anolik’s book, she does deliver, helpfully identifying several of the figures discussed pseudonymously in Babitz’s work (whether those books use the first-person pronoun or the third) and often discussing them at length. This straightforward reporting arrives as balm, both dishy insight into Eve’s rarefied circles and a welcome respite from Anolik’s excitable neo–New Journalist tics. We learn, for instance, that the venomous charmers of Sex and Rage called Max (who Babitz, with typical piquant precision, says “smelled like a birthday party for small children”) and Etienne (“built like a lizard or a saluki”) are Earl McGrath and Ahmet Ertegun. The former was a bisexual bon vivant and one of the dedicatees of Didion’s The White Album; he was also the unofficial majordomo to—and, per Anolik, a “procurer” of bedmates for—the latter, the president of Atlantic Records and one in a long line of Eve’s married inamoratos. One of the most vivid characters in Slow Days, Fast Company, the aspiring singer and actress and sometime smack user “with cheeks the color of baby’s feet” dubbed Terry Finch, turns out to be Ronee Blakley, who indelibly played the unstable country-music superstar Barbara Jean in Robert Altman’s superb Nashville (1975).

And Anolik’s claim from her hyperactive intro that her book on Babitz is “a memoir in disguise” is also borne out, if queasily so. She spares no detail in her quest to track down Babitz, a mission that began in 2010, apparently launched by a false memory: Anolik, thirty-two at the time and living in New York, swears she first became aware of Babitz thanks to a quote attributed to her in screenwriter Joe Eszterhas’s memoir Hollywood Animal (2004), but comes to realize that no such passage exists, in that book or any other by Eszterhas. She finds used copies of Eve’s novels, then long out of print, online—where Babitz herself, with no social-media presence, could not be found. She was, however, in the phone book; Anolik mails a postcard to, then starts calling, Eve at her West Hollywood residence, where she had been living as a near recluse since 1997, when a mishap with a cigar led to third-degree burns over half her body.

After two years of ignoring these messages, Babitz finally agrees to have lunch with Anolik, who has by now received encouragement from Vanity Fair, though her pitch has yet to be officially accepted. That initial meeting is strained; Babitz wolfs down her food and says little. (The encounters would grow more relaxed though never entirely comfortable. Anolik has a much easier rapport with Babitz’s younger sister, Mirandi, who proved crucial to the project and is also profiled here.) Anolik refuses to be deterred: “That Eve, famous for her beauty and seductiveness, was now a ruin and a gorgon excited me. It heightened the beauty and seductiveness of her books, reinforced my conviction that she was an artist and an original.” Later in that same paragraph, Anolik makes a bolder confession: “Then there was this: she was my ticket out of publishing purgatory—anonymous writer-for-hire assignments, dry-as-dust magazines that barely paid—I was sure of it. It was starting to dawn on me how ambitious I was, how far I was willing to go. It was starting to dawn on me that I might be a gorgon too.”

Perhaps Anolik’s naked admission of her zeal—or what might less charitably be called her careerism—is a sign of her daring candor. Or maybe it’s just more ostentation. The disclosure, at the very least, undermines Anolik’s insistence that Hollywood’s Eve is also “a love story.” Anolik, we discover, unequivocally adores only one of the books in the Babitz stealth-memoir pentad: Slow Days, Fast Company, which she hails as “an authentic masterpiece” and “the book that made me want to write this book.” She deems Eve’s Hollywood, however, “not a mature or disciplined work,” adding that “certain pieces, you don’t know what they’re doing there.” The judgments grow harsher. “I don’t like Sex and Rage and regard it, in spite of its killer title, as a failure” is followed by an even more derisive assessment: “If Sex and Rage was the beginning of downhill for her, L.A. Woman proved that the slide wasn’t stopping soon.” She gives the final volume in the quintet a backhanded compliment: “Black Swans isn’t up to Slow Days, doesn’t have that breadth or magic. It’s a good, serious work, though, and a marked improvement over Sex and Rage, certainly over L.A. Woman.” (Anolik is a fan of Babitz’s 1991 Esquire piece on Jim Morrison and her 1980 book on the Italian fashion label Fiorucci. Two by Two, Babitz’s 1999 volume on the tango scene in LA and her last published book to date, Anolik calls “slight.”)

What Anolik appears to really love is the idea of Babitz. Or more specifically, Babitz as the inverse of Anolik, who wonders about her subject, “Is the fascination she exerts over me simply that of the Other—she’s an adventuress and sexual outlaw, and I’m married to my [male] college sweetheart, have never taken a drug, am as compulsively abstemious as she is compulsively excessive, and I therefore can’t get enough?” But that awe is disingenuous. Later, Anolik seems to pity Babitz for not being Anolik—that is, a wife, a mother, financially secure, ambitious. Never married, forgoing the conventional path Anolik has followed, mostly dormant since her accident, Eve is labeled “a child,” one who will never grow up: “She was beholden to nothing and no one—not a man or kids, or a piece of property, or a boss, not even to an audience. Adulthood was a condition she simply wouldn’t submit to, and that was that.”

This is narrow-minded, condescending, and sanctimonious. I doubt Babitz will care. She had already shrewdly summed up the likes of Anolik in this passage from Sex and Rage, about the frantic desperation of editors at a certain kind of New York magazine: “They had to be at every birth of a new trend, every debut, every next year’s event, or person, or gang war.”

Six months with Nova flew by. But it was also the longest and fullest six months of our lives. I can’t really explain how it’s both, but it is.

Here are few photos we snapped while taking a picnic (Nova’s first picnic) to celebrate our family day.

Wine glass full of cheddar bunnies? Don’t mind if I do.

Incase you were curious what six months of hair growth from a buzzed haircut looks like. Here it is!

Framing this one.

Cheers!

Our hearts are full. This season of life is more than I could have ever asked for or imagined. Not to say it’s without struggles, because I promise you not every day is so picturesque. But, on this Monday afternoon it was the perfect moment with our little girl. And I will treasure these memories with her for as long as I live.

Jeremy and I have never been happier. I hesitate to say how Nova feels, because she isn’t at an age to fully express herself yet. But what I can confidently say is that she feels loved and special every day. She may not fully understand what a family is- but she knows we’re a family and she’s celebrating with us. Happiest happiest happiest times.

This summer we are staying home except for one week in Missouri. We typically travel a lot more and I think we will in future seasons, but right now it feels so right to be planted in Tennessee with our sprinkler and our blow up pool. Cheers to summertime!

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The state Judicial Building.

The Iowa Supreme Court says a home improvement store has to pay state sales tax for labor on some items purchased for homes.

The Department of Revenue determined the Lowe’s stores in the state should have been charging sales taxes on labor for the installation of windows and doors, faucets, toilets, dishwashers, ceiling fans, sinks, vanities, and garbage disposals. The Revenue Department found the installation services were taxable as carpentry, electrical and electronic repair and installation, and plumbing and pipe fitting services. The Revenue Department issued a sales tax assessment of $1,794,450.40 plus interest on the labor performed.

Lowe’s said the labor done by its independent contractors for those items fell under a tax exemption for new construction, reconstruction, alteration, expansion or remodeling and the Department of Revenue misread the law. But the Revenue Department says the installations did not involve any structural changes and were not exempt.

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled the installation of vanity tops, windows and doors involved carpentry alone without electrical or plumbing services and should be exempt. But the court says the other installations still fall under the sales tax and sent the issue back to the district court to decide the final amount.

Lowe’s had worked with the department and the amount still outstanding was nearly $250,000. The district court will now determine how much of that amount is still due.

Here’s the ruling: Lowes-Sales-Tax-Ruling-PDF

After months of speculation and mounting anticipation, the high-stakes international design competition to reimagine Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport released five architectural concepts for the ambitious $8.5 billion project.

The five teams, whittled down from a field of 12 that answered the city’s request for qualifications, include some of the planet’s top architectural talents. Their task: design 21st-century global terminal to replace the airport’s aging 1960s-era Terminal 2.

Slated for completion in 2028, the massive facility will handle both domestic and international flights and includes its own customs and immigration checkpoints. Combined with two new satellite terminals, the overhaul will increase O’Hare’s total terminal area by an estimated 60 percent, from 5.5 to 8.9 million square feet.

On Thursday, the city released minute-long videos previewing each design. Residents can get a closer look at the concepts by checking out physical models of each proposal on display at the Chicago Architecture Center for free now through January 31. Bid materials will also be posted inside O’Hare’s Terminal 2.

Here is what the architects have in mind.

Fentress-EXP-Brook-Garza

Led by Colorado-based Fentress Architects, proposal one calls for a soaring terminal topped by a curving, skylit roof. Looking more like a hill compared to the mountain-like peaks of the Fentress-designed terminal at Denver International Airport, the saddle-shaped design filters sunlight to the multi-level concourse below through undulating vertical slats. Brook Architecture, EXP, and Garza Karhoff Engineering are joint venture partners on the bid.

Foster Epstein Moreno JV

London’s Foster + Partners—the designer behind Chicago’s riverfront Apple Store—teams up with local firms Epstein and JGMA on this striking, cloud-like concept. Greeting arriving passengers with three vaulted arches, the terminal transition to a single, grand archway framing a “theatre-like” view of the airfield beyond. The structure is topped a delicate-looking grid of diagonal skylights.

Studio ORD

Team 3, headed by Chicago-based Studio Gang Architects features a Y-shaped structure converging on a central atrium. The three-pronged layout is likely nod to the Chicago municipal device—a symbol of Chicago River’s three branches—that is found throughout the city’s built environment. The design features warm, wood tones and a number of indoor trees as a reference to Orchard Field, O’Hare’s International Airport’s original name. The Studio Gang-led bid includes partner firms Solomon Cordwell Buenz, STL Architects, Corgan Associates, and Milhouse Engineering and Construction.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP

A homage to Orchard Field also found its way into the bid from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill—the hometown powerhouse firm synonymous with the city’s muscular Willis Tower and former John Hancock Center. Here, the design plays on Chicago’s natural landscape by featuring plantings of native prairie grass and glass-enclosed groves of trees. While other terminal designs emphasize soaring verticality, this concept is low-slung, rectangular, and more horizontal in its architectural expression. SOM’s proposal shares some visual DNA with the firm’s eye-catching Terminal 2 at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.

Santiago Calatrava, LLC

Last but not least is a bid from Spanish-born starchitect Santiago Calatrava. Arguably the most grandiose in its scope, the design calls for giant arrowhead-shaped structure rendered in the designer’s signature white, skeletal style. The video shows this vision extending to neighboring terminals and east of O’Hare service drive where a large garden would replace or reimagine the airport’s existing parking structures and Hilton hotel. Calatrava’s firm—which penned the ill-fated 2,000-foot Chicago Spire—has faced criticism in the past for designing pricey projects like the World Trade Center’s Occulus, which ballooned from $2.2 billion to $4 billion.

At this point in the process, the presentation only represent a broad look at what each team envisions for the airport. Less glamorous but still vital details like passenger circulation, security screening, and baggage pickup appear to be a discussion reserved for another day.

The project will also need to make provisions for Elon Musk’s proposed O’Hare Express. The privately-funded underground “Loop” system plans to connect directly to the new terminal, said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel last year.

Emanuel hopes to announce a winning design before he departs office in May. However, as the Chicago Tribune noted, it’s unclear who exactly will ultimately make the call. So far, city officials have declined to reveal the members of its O’Hare evaluation committee.

Despite the bureaucratic murkiness, the City’s Department of Aviation is bringing a democratic element to the process by allowing the public to vote for their favorite design online. Polling started Thursday morning and runs through January 23.

In the meantime, feel free to select your favorite in our unofficial Curbed poll.

Hello. So I'm about to tackle a tiling job I've been putting off for a while.

I'll be needing to remove some old red oak flooring, but I do not want to cut into the sub floor. How can I determine the thickness of the oak planks I currently have without doing that?

I have no vents or registers to look at. I don't mind actually cutting into a corner or something, possibly hitting the sub floor if I need to do that to find the thickness of the planks.

Thanks.

The term “circular saw” technically refers to any saw with a circular blade. However, we generally mean a handheld circular saw when we use it, but how much do you know about the saw in your hand? Here are 5 minutes of circular saw history.

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Drywall—comprised of compressed gypsum (a soft sulfite mineral)—creates wonderfully smooth walls. Yet insert a nail or screw into it and it’s likely to crumble, often resulting in the fastener working loose and the hung item falling to the floor. The solution is to use drywall anchors, which are designed to spread within or behind the drywall panel, creating pressure that locks the anchor in place.

Before you pick up any old anchor, shop smarter by considering the support you need for the wall-mounting project at hand and selecting the type of drywall anchor—sold on their own or in sets with screws—to match it. There are four different types of drywall anchors, largely distinguished by the weight of items to be hung. Keep reading to understand what’s available and check out our picks for the best drywall anchors in each category.

Know the Holding Power You Need

Drywall anchors come in various designs, sizes, and holding power (maximum weight of an object you can safely hang). While manufacturers are not required to list their anchors’ holding power, many do, either on the package or in the included literature. Additionally, basic drywall anchor types are associated with a range of holding power (see individual anchor descriptions below). Always use an anchor with a holding power that meets or exceeds the weight of the item you want to hang.

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Selecting the Right Size for Screws and Drill Bits

Drywall anchors can be purchased separately from the screws they hold in place, but it’s wise to buy anchors that come packaged with the correct size screws if you don’t have a wide variety of screws handy. If you prefer to purchase the anchors and screws separately, you’ll find the required screw size on the package. If the type of anchor you select requires a pre-drilled pilot hole, you will also find the corresponding drill bit size on the package.

Understanding the Types of Drywall Anchors

1. EXPANSION ANCHORS

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True to their name, expansion anchors spread to create a tight bond with the wall and are designed to hold lightweight items. The anchor’s shank (tapered end) is split in half. To install, a pilot hole is drilled in the wall, the anchor is fitted into the hole, and then a hammer is used to lightly tap the anchor head flush with the wall. When a screw is inserted into the anchor, the split ends of the shank spread, expanding and putting pressure on the inside of the drywall to hold it securely.

Expansion anchors are:

• Often made of plastic but may also be made of nylon or zinc-coated metal.
• Affordable, averaging $.03 to $.20 per anchor, depending on size.
• Easy to install and DIY friendly.
• Able to hold between five and 25 pounds, depending on brand and size (larger anchors hold more weight).
• Not suitable for use on ceiling drywall as downward pressure could cause the anchor to slip out.

2. THREADED DRYWALL ANCHORS

Also called “self-drilling” or “self-tapping” anchors, threaded drywall anchors are made from hard nylon or metal and are able to hold heavier items. They feature sharp, pointed shanks that can be screwed into the wall without a pre-drilled hole by using a screwdriver or a screw gun. Once the anchor is in the wall, the screw is inserted, which forces the sides of the anchor to flare and wedge the anchor tightly against the drywall.

They have the following attributes:

• Holding power of 25 to 75 pounds, depending on size.
• Self-drilling; no pilot hole necessary.
• Cost $.25 to $.40 per anchor, depending on brand and size.
• Easy to install with screwdriver or screw gun.
• Not suitable for use on ceilings.

3. SLEEVE-TYPE HOLLOW WALL ANCHORS

Known as “molly bolts” or simply “mollies,” these metal sleeve-type hollow wall anchors provide medium-weight holding power, but offer a unique feature—the ability to remove the screw and reinsert it if necessary in the future.

Here’s how it works: A pilot hole is drilled into the drywall and then the anchor is inserted into the hole. The underside of the anchor’s head features sharp metal tips that pierce the drywall surface. When the screw is inserted in the anchor, each twist of the screw forces the shank of the anchor to compress (lengthwise) while it expands sideways. When correctly inserted, the screw can be removed from the anchor, which remains securely in the wall and then reinserted. This makes it handy if you’re replacing items in the same spot—such as toilet paper holders.

These anchors:

• Have a holding power of 25 to 55 pounds., depending on size.
• Require a pre-drilled hole.
• Have a permanently attached shank, but the screw can be removed.
• May be used in ceiling drywall for lightweight items, such as smoke alarms.
• Cost $.25 to $.40 per anchor, depending on brand and size.

4. TOGGLE ANCHORS

When you need serious holding power, opt for toggle anchors, which come in a variety of sizes, designs, and materials, including metal and plastic.

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Traditional metal toggle bolts are the strongest of the bunch, but they’re not the simplest to install because they require drilling a hole that’s approximately three times wider than the diameter of the bolt (necessary to insert the anchor). With these, the anchor features one or two bars (or wings) that fold flat against the bolt during insertion. Once inserted, a quick twist of the bolt loosens the wings, causing them to flare outward. As the bolt is tightened with a screwdriver, the wings draw inward to form a strong perpendicular brace along the backside of the drywall. The installation challenge comes in keeping the bolt centered in the hole while tightening it. It takes some practice and patience to get it right, but once you do you’ll be impressed by the strong holding power. It’s more likely that the wall itself will fail before the toggle bolt does.

Winged plastic anchors (the new kids on the block) feature plastic “wings” that fold tightly together so the anchor can be inserted into a pre-drilled hole. Once the anchor is in place, a wand (included with the anchor) is pushed through the hole to expand the wings on the backside. A screw is then inserted, which draws the wings snugly against the back of the drywall.

Toggle bolts at a glance:

• Maximum holding power for metal toggles is 100 pounds, depending on size; plastic wing toggles have a holding power up to 20 pounds, depending on size.
• Both metal and plastic toggles can be used on ceilings at 1/3 the holding power listed for walls, up to a maximum of 15 pounds. Drywall may pull away from ceiling joists at heavier weights.
• Metal toggles can be difficult to keep level in the wall during installation.

Our Top Picks

Our top four drywall anchor picks consistently excel in home use and are favorites among DIY customers. Unless noted differently, holding powers listed are for standard, 1/2” thick drywall.

Photo: amazon.com

BEST EXPANSION ANCHOR: Qualihome Ribbed Plastic Drywall Anchor Kit ($10.99)

For reliable support in light-duty situations (up to 15 pounds), rely on the Qualihome Ribbed Plastic Drywall Anchor Kit. It comes with 201 pieces (100 pairs of anchors and screws), so you’ll have plenty of anchors on hand. The anchor shanks are split, allowing them to expand (with screw insertion) for snug attachment. Amazon buyers give this kit 4.5 out of five stars for ease of installation and for the included drill bit (no need to hunt for a bit in your toolbox). Available from Amazon.

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BEST THREADED ANCHOR: TOGGLER SnapSkru Self-Drilling Drywall Anchors with Screws ($17.08)

Manufactured from glass-filled nylon, TOGGLER SnapSkru Self-Drilling Drywall Anchors are rigid enough and sharp enough to screw into drywall without a pre-drilled hole. Amazon buyers give these anchors 4.3 out of five stars, citing ease of use and hefty holding power, securely hanging items up to 45 pounds. The pack of threaded anchors contains 50 anchors and 50 screws. Available on Amazon.

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BEST SLEEVE-TYPE ANCHOR/MOLLY BOLT: Glarks Heavy Duty Zinc Plated Steel Molly Bolts ($14.87)

For versatility in the molly bolt category, go with the Glarks Heavy Duty Zinc Plated Steel Molly Bolt Assortment Kit. It comes with 42 anchors in six sizes, and is intended for use on 1/2”, 5/8”, and 3/4” drywall (two anchor sizes for each drywall thickness). Made of zinc-plated carbon steel, the largest of these sleeve-type wall anchors will safely hold items up to 50 pounds when installed in 3/4” drywall. The smallest anchors hold up to 18 pounds in 1/2” drywall, and the medium-size anchors hold up to 25 pounds in 5/8” drywall. You’ll find these mollies suitable for hanging coat racks, mirrors, and other medium-weight items—no wonder reviewers gave them 3.8 out of five stars! Available on Amazon.

Photo: amazon.com

BEST TOGGLE ANCHOR: Hillman Group Toggle Bolt (pack of 50) ($12.47)

With a holding power of up to 55 pounds, it’s tough to beat Hillman Group Toggle Bolts for installing shelving and other medium-weight items. You can also use these toggles to hang items that weigh up to 13 pounds from the ceiling. Amazon buyers give Hillman Toggle Bolts 4.5 out of five stars for their exceptional strength, noting that they’re the “best anchors if you can’t find a stud.” Available from Amazon.