1. What is your name? Lauren Ashley Cerand
2. How old are you? 31; a Gemini, with Leo Rising and a Scorpio Moon.
3. Where are you from, where do you live now, where are you going?
I was born in Washington, D.C., raised in Potomac, Maryland, currently live in New York’s Chinatown. I leave for a spell in London and Paris just after the New Year.
4. What is your first memory?
My most startling early memory is of walking into a neighbor’s pool, being much less than four feet tall, and leaning my head back so as not to go underwater as I tip-toed well beyond my limits. The next thing I remember is of watching myself spinning desperately in the pool, from an aerial perspective above. It’s quite a peaceful memory now. I was plucked out. I lived.
5. Are there specific sounds, scents, temperature, noises, colors, etc. associated with this memory?
Water, warm and both treacherous and familiar. The powerful, beyond language force of the thing that gives life and can take it away. Blue. My blonde hair at the time.
6. What is your most cozy, pleasant, or ebullient memory? Please note sounds, scents, etc.
Last winter I was in bed with a man I loved, snuggled under my faux chinchilla bedspread, we watched Jules et Jim on a bitterly cold December afternoon, and with my head on his shoulder, somewhere from above I heard him say, “Happiness… is …so… profound.” To paraphrase Elizabeth Taylor’s character in Butterfield 8, “I have to tell you something. Nobody knows this except a certain man, somewhere who I like to think of as standing in the middle of a lake filled with burning gasoline.” But I shall remember that day, and that sentiment, always, above all things, fondly.
7. What is one of your favorite images, artists, paintings, photographers/photos, etc. & why?
An editor I was enjoying a carnal flirtation with once asked me during a particularly erudite exchange whether I was familiar with Fragonard’s The Bolt. I’ve always thought that was a pretty good line.
8. What is one of your favorite scents (can be perfume but doesn’t have to be - for example, mine is the smell of coffee mixed with Mrs. Bradford’s perfume in the 5th grade, it’s particularly comforting)?
Right now I’m wearing Carnal Flower. I wore it for a while a couple of years ago. Then I read somewhere that it was the most popular scent in the line –– mind you, there’s one outlet in the U.S., so how popular is that, really? –– and I quit it at once. I received a bottle of Shalini as a gift from a very thoughtful fellow for my 30th birthday shortly thereafter, over dinner at Cafe des Artistes, and nearly bathed in it until the little crystal bottle was spent. I’d love another (are you reading this, darling? how handsome you look today!), but Shalini is well out of the reach of mere mortals. Even me.
9. Please describe your bedroom.
Lucrezia Borgia’s hunting lodge, with shades of Whistler’s classic bohemian etching, Au Sixième.
10. What reminds you of me (I mean, be kind, but you don’t have to be censored)?
There are so many descriptions of the beautiful daughters of the gods in Greek mythology. Nymphs, muses, fates, always frolicking in their mischievous way, true to their purpose. With your classical features, coltish proportions and effortless élan, I can easily see you among them.
