The FOE is the home base for the Dallas’ chapter of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, a nationwide non-profit that happens to have the distinction of being known as the most party-friendly of all of America’s traditional charitable organizations (John F. Kennedy was a member, if that tells you anything). So it’s no surprise that during the summer, the Dallas chapter’s home base—reportedly a former country club called the Hollow Tree— opens its doors to non-members to use its outdoor pool and clubhouse. What is rather shocking is the cinematic, otherworldly atmosphere that one glides into at the FOE, which has all the drama, aesthetically at least, of Dynasty and Dallas combined. Mixing a David Lynchian, 1950s, white-gloves-please feeling with one of the best dive bars I’ve ever been to, the place is like the idea of America found in old movies like A Place in the Sun—were Texans, now known predominantly for nails/hair/nails/hair, ever this chic? Getting to the FOE is somewhat daunting and as you drive down a road strewn with abandoned houses into a dirt parking lot that faces a building, Greeted with a not-so-impressive façade, you are certain you’re in the wrong place.  However, once you get past the friendly blonde in denim cutoffs at the counter who collects your entrance fee, all doubt quickly disappears into a pool filled with bikers, local shop owners, young families, empty nesters and Eagles. Here, you sit in the sun and watch the kids in the pool as they chase after the watermelon they never can seem to catch. Or, you spend the afternoon lying in the sun, sipping a machine-made frozen margaritas from a Solo cup and speculating about the intriguing lives of these Texas locals. All while listening to the sounds of ‘50s crooners over the loudspeaker. Yes, the loudspeaker.

Fraternal Order of Eagles, Dallas Aerie 3108, 8500 Arturo Drive, Dallas, Texas 75228

We live in an age of borrowed nostalgia. Nineteenth-century mustaches on every upper lip and pre-Prohibition cocktails on every bar menu. We listen to music from the ’70s and wear clothes from the ’80s. And now, thanks to Tribeca shop Adeline Adeline, we can ride bicycles from ’40s. The shop, which opened on Reade Street last month, offers a variety of De Sica-era rides for the old at heart, ranging from the no-frills Roadster Classic from Linus to the Princess Sovereign from Pashley, which comes complete with skirt guard and wicker basket. Julie Hirschfeld opened Adeline Adeline, named after both of her grandmothers, to fill what she saw as a gap in the New York-market for the rider who is neither the scruffy fixed-gear enthusiast nor the bodysuited weekend racer. New York is a city of tribes, and its cyclists are no different.

Adeline Adeline presents the bicycle as fetishized object, like a Maybach or a Giacometti, each placed on the smooth platform that spans the length of the store, in contrast to the crammed racks that pack most cycling shops. The accessories—a variety of baskets, saddles, bells, headlights, helmets, and panniers—hang from the opposite wall, each perfectly designed item glistening under a spotlight. The bicycles, mostly from Europe—the Abicis in azzuro, crema, and rosso from Italy, the baby/dog/grocery-ready Bakfiets from Holland—are uniformly gorgeous, with clean lines in cheerful colors. The staff will let you take any model out for a spin; there’s nothing like a weekend ride along the neighborhood’s impossibly charming cobblestone streets to seal the deal. These are bicycles for the girls who prefer Lanvin to Lycra, those men you see cycling down Grand Street in a full suit even in August. These are rides your parents would have had: vintage, classic, but completely modern.

Adeline Adeline, 147 Reade Street, 212-227-1150, http://www.adelineadeline.com

Photography Julian Schratter

Attending one of Jennifer Rubell’s infamous food performances allows one to become, for the moment, re-acquainted with the conceptual imperatives of bounty and harvest. A recent Rubell “food journey,” at the Brooklyn Museum, featured 700 paint tubes filled with edible dips and a large indoor garden with pull-from-the-ground-and-eat carrots. If Jennifer’s copious piles of food were to magically turn into mountains of art books, you might conjure what it’s like inside the Rubell Family Collection Library. Founded by Jennifer’s parents, noted collectors Don and Mera Rubell, the Rubell Family Collection Museum in Miami is housed inside a former Drug Enforcement Agency facility, and the library found within is certainly a mind-altering experience. On a recent visit to Miami to work on a project with the painter JJ PEET, we were invited to do research at the library (the Rubells generously offer it for use to artists, writers and scholars on a by-appointment basis) Presided over by the museum’s gracious Director, Juan Roselione-Valadez, the library is, to quote Juan, “Like nothing you’ll find in New York.” And, you know what jaded New York? He’s correct. The library’s alpine-high walls are stacked floor-to-ceiling with over 40,000 volumes mostly dating from 1970 to the present artists’ monographs, catalogs, works of criticism and theory, full sets of art journals and magazines–many of which, according to Juan, the Rubells brought back personally from their travels. It is extraordinary. The section of Fs alone require a cherrypicker to reach—and are all the more magnificent for the climb.

Most of us want to pretend that bad things never happened to us, that we have never been ashamed or mistreated—and, more importantly, that we’ve never done so to others. French artist Louise Bourgeois transformed all the bruising lies we tell ourselves into forms with a telltale heart that beat out for pernicious, principled truth. And she was really funny, with her huge, menacing arachnid forms and snickering phallic anecdotes. Her passing allows us to remember the function of art: sometimes understanding objects is the closest we will ever get toward understanding ourselves.

I’m an objet-addict. In recent evidence, I’ve taken to carrying clutches that aren’t clutches at all. I fall in love with an old bronze box, a “traveling altar” from Tibet, and suddenly it’s my handbag for the night. This explains, in part, my obsession with designer Julian Louie. Within his fall collection, an assortment of easy pieces in smoky, upholstery-inspired fabrics, is a cocoon-shaped silk satin dress embroidered with flora like edelweiss and ivy. It was atop a chair Georges Jacob created for Marie-Antoinette’s Petit Trianon that Louie first encountered the pattern, proving that sometimes an object is too perfect to leave well enough alone. Further evidence lies in a ruffled skirt embellished with the same flowers and trimmed with gold-tooled leather referencing the antique books laying about Louie’s apartment.  Perhaps Louie’s embrace of interiors, old world and otherwise, comes from his background in architecture.  The designer studied the discipline before realizing his heart was in creating clothing, rather than buildings. “There was something about the immediacy of it that I was interested in,” says Louie of the transition. “There’s a vitality to fashion.” So, the journey began for the Sante Cruz native, who was soon noticed by Francisco Costa (who recommended him for Italian Vogue’s Protégé Project).  Now, Louie’s collection has taken him back indoors, away from the surf and sunset-inspired looks that defined his past collections. Clothes aside, I’m equally obsessed with Louie’s new hair, a candy floss coif, the tips dyed the palest platinum fading into fluorescent pink. Oh, and there’s something else to love about Louie: he’s the son of two fiction writers. “Very special,” is how he describes his upbringing with a raised eyebrow and a sly smile. “There was no TV, it was always Dickens before bed.”

http://julianlouie.com