Lily is in Bloom Again

Isn't it nice when a National Treasure gets to remind us how she got that way?

A Fine Day for Singing

Over in another corner of the cyberverse, dear TJB has noted that today would have been the 102nd birthday of a now nearly forgotten lady who was once one of the great éminences grises of Broadway and Hollywood, Sylvia Fine Kaye.

Redux: Thar She Blows!

In honor of today, the 132nd anniversary of the eruption of Krakatoa, a cataclysm that killed thousands and had repercussions as far away as Europe and the Americas, this admittedly only marginally related little gem (and accompanying favorite memory) that originally appeared here on August 4, 2012.

Birthday Boy...

...from all evidence in this snap, in his birthday suit.

Happy birthday, Maestro, you sexy thing, you... Like Auntie Mame, he was the pied piper, and how I lucky I was, for a little while, to follow his tune.

Sister Act

The late Countess of Snowdon would have been 85 today, and really I rather wish she were.

The Marriage of True Minds

Because I have a useless mind, one that retains bits and pieces from the distant past, but not, unfortunately, vital information put before it yesterday, I can tell you that today would have been my paternal grandparents' 95th wedding anniversary.  This happy couple, I should note, is not they, but it might as well have been, for isn't there something almost wholly interchangeable about most wedding pictures?

Damn, Damn, Damn

The news from Bangkok is horrifying.  When you read about the bombing of the Erawan Shrine, with the chaotic pictures taken in the dark of a scene that's impossible, really, to decipher except as the latest in the long and endless string of acts of pointless, horrible political violence that stud the world, I want you to remember this picture.

Come to Me...

...My melancholy Barbie...

Once More, Let's Open That Door

I don't usually, magpie-like, post things I run across on other, infinitely more-trafficked sites, but over at his shiny new digs, dear JoeMyGod did us the favor yesterday of spreading the word about this gem, and I can't resist.

Hat Check

For no good reason other than it's a dull Tuesday, let's look in on Sra. Peron as she picks a chapeau from her imposing collection.  The year is 1950, and Life is there, in the person of the excellent photographer Gisele Freund (whom I most know from her photographs of Virginia Woolf, which are disconcertingly in color - if only the same were true of these hats!).

Metropolitan Life

Our Nation's Capital, by and large, is not an excitable city.

Bloodied but Unbowed

Your correspondent (artist's impression)

Bother.  I fell again.

The Joy of Dressing Up

Sad news on Seventh Avenue tonight; an era of American* fashion closes with the flight to Fabulon of the one and only Scaasi.

Lions in the Garden

With the sad tale of Cecil and the Despicable Dentist so much in the news, I thought it would be nice to check in with a far luckier lion.  This regal specimen lords it over the principal lawn of Hillwood, the resplendent home of the rather-resplendent-herself Marjorie Merriweather Post.