A Flame That Flickered

The Rialto - what's left of it, corporatized, Disneyfied, and be-Lion Kinged - gleams a little less brightly tonight, for tonight one of its longtime, long lost leading ladies bade farewell.

As the Heart Grows Older

Spring and Fall

to a young child 

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; 
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
 Now no matter, child, the name:
 Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
 Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
 What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
 It ís the blight man was born for,
 It is Margaret you mourn for.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins

Birthday Girl: The Girl for Life

She would have been 123 today, Miss Lillian Gish, which means it's nearly a quarter-century since she left us. Hard to believe.

Reality, Or What Passes For It

As so often in troubled times, my dears, this last little while I've more than once had need of a Garbo Moment. Here we see her displaying a smile that, for me, rivals the one attributed to that Signora Gioconda about whom we hear so much.