Sweater Boy

Sexy William Powell.  Who knew?  Amusing, intriguing, gallant, flirtatious, sure - but this level of va-va-va-voom is news to me.

Shameless Sunday Camp Explosion: Fire Away

Camp refuses both the harmonies of traditional seriousness, and the risks of fully identifying with extreme states of feeling.

- Susan Sontag, "Notes on Camp"

Meltdown

On a fine March day 35 years ago, there I was sitting in Concert Choir, right where I liked to be, just behind and slightly to the left of Scott Edelman, who had a truly epic backside and was my guide - what with me being, to be kind, what cruel judges on television singing contests call "pitchy" - toward hitting any note above middle-C.

A Word to the Wise

When dining out, sometimes it's just as well not to know what's going on in the kitchen...

Tall, Dark...

...and winning.  Meet the remarkably well set-up Mr. Ayman Moussa, who among other achievements is none other than Mr. Lebanon 2013.

Sparkle, Plenty

If Adrian and Erté had gone for marriage equality avant la lettre and had a son, with Liberace sitting in as godmother...

Plush Velvet Sometimes

Some powerful birthday juju in the air this weekend, carissimi...

Come On-a Her House

Let's brighten the end of this gloomy week with a true ray of starry sunshine - the latest magnum opus in the magnificent career of that Levantine ultrastar, Miss Nancy Ajram.

Spring has Sprung...

...My ass.

Mid Pleasures and Palaces

This week's fine weather, alas, failed us today, with glowering low skies, a biting wind, and sharp, sudden showers that scuttled, among other things my idle thoughts about going out to Schönbrunn, the Hapsburg's cozy little summer place at the edge of town (I joke, of course - when Marie Antoinette went from here to Versailles, she was probably disappointed that her new house was so much less impressive than where she grew up).

Everything Old...

...seems, in Vienna, to be if not exactly new again, then at least very much with us.

The Road Not Taken

I ran into myself this evening, and it was an experience both unnerving and thought-provoking.

Of Portraits, Pearls, and Pastries

I do hope you'll forgive yet another portrait of a bygone lady, but when I saw her hanging last weekend on a wall at the Vienna City Museum, I fell just a little bit in love.  And I don't think it's just her striking resemblance to Bert Lahr, either.

Lady in Red

This charming woman, whose roguish expression greatly caught my fancy this afternoon while I was visiting the Kunsthistorisches Museum, is Emilia, Princess of Saxony, and I don't know about you, but I'm just mad for her snood-hat combination.

Das Sissi Kammer

So here I am in Vienna, assigned rather to my surprise to a hotel so totally Viennese that it doesn't quite seem serious.

Wiener Schmaltz

What could better summon up the nostalgic elegance of Alte Wien than that rarest of cinematic genres, the Hitchcock operetta?  Throw in those mitteleuropische sweethearts, Frauleins Matthew and Compton, and you have a confection that seems likely to be about as authentically and evocatively Viennese as Brighton Pier.

Secret Love

Here to enliven your Tuesday - a hideously cold and snowy one where we are - is the latest hit from Iran's fabulous goddess-in-exile, the extraordinary Googoosh.

Oscars, Schmoscars

Unless and until we see something as fabulously demented as this, I'm not going to get too excited about all this Oscars red-carpet brouhaha.