...fight off the winter blues by going all Gorey all of a sudden?
I mean, really - if this winter is going to persist in being so entirely vile, I think the only recourse is going to be to go find myself a really good old mink swing coat, grow out the beard, and wear all my rings at once. Makes perfect sense.
One of my joys, since our return from Parts Exotic, is that I've been reunited with my well-thumbed copies of the three Amphigoreys and their beloved cast of characters, from the unfortunate tots of Gashlycrumb to the Beastly Baby to that curious, nay ominous, sofa that caused so many carnally invidious problems one memorable weekend.
Wouldn't he have made a marvelous Blackglama model? As it is, the only other male participant I recall from that legendary campaign (I have nothing to say about it's more more recent, infinitely paler, incarnation) is Nureyev.
If you don't know Edward Gorey, you really owe it to yourself to immerse yourself for a while in his deeply perverse yet oddly touching universe, limned in black ink as uncompromising as (and every so often depicting) widow' weeds.
Oh, those G-Crumb Tinies delight me no end.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to think that Mr. Gorey has chosen monkey fur over mink...made from real monks, of course.
The San Francisco library has a wall of old library cards (from the days when we looked things up using the Dewey Decimal System), among which are scattered cards with the Tinies. Thanks to Mr. Peenee, I know this . . . and we've spent delightful times trying to find them all amid the vast wall o' cards.
ReplyDeleteOh, how I love card catalogues. I've learned to like most things techno, but I really do miss the wonderful challenge of finding just the right book. My very first job was as a library page, and after a while, once I got really good at shelving, I was allowed to type them up. I can tell you, there are few satisfactions in the world to equal a really well-typed catalogue card.
DeleteIt's always saddened me somewhat that the library where I work had abandoned its card catalogue a few years before I was hired. It remained in the lobby, still usable if one wanted to find anything added prior to 1986, for some time. Then it was torn out during a renovation, and most of the cards sent to be recycled.
DeleteI took a box of the cards, and still have a small stack. A special bonus is the ones I've saved have mostly Cyrillic text. Relics of a bygone era.
"What becomes a legend most? Blackglama."
ReplyDeleteYou know it! Anything that's good enough for everyone Joan Crawford to Lillian Hellman is a-okay with me...
DeleteAre you aware that there's a fabulous coffee table book on the Blackglama campaign, photo's and all? I treasure mine, used from Amazon.
DeleteAbsolutely I love that book. I got it as a present from my parents while I was in high school. Yes, that would indeed be the same parents who professed to be unaware of my homosexuality for a further 20 years - something that I believe approaches a world record for cluelessness...
DeleteWouldn't you love to see all his rings up close to see what they are?
ReplyDelete