Mystery Clowns

Clowns: even when it's only a group of Johnson-era tots dressing up, they give me the creeps. I'm especially put off by Miss Thing there, dead center, not to mention the little leg show that Bozette's giving over on the right. The sad harlequin in between, though, looks just about ready for Miss Quinn's kindergarten pageant version of Les Enfants du Paradis; him we like.

Best Line Ever

"You haf booped your lest boop." *

Lugosi has gotten a lot of respect in recent years as the Great Thespian Done Wrong by Hollywood machinations, just as Ed Wood has gotten more than his share of props for "rescuing" the onetime Austro-Hungarian heartthrob and showing him some respect at the end of his long, strange trip.

In this clip, though, we can see that only two years after his greatest triumph Bela was already quite willing to trash his own image - although there is something in his glance at about 1:16 that does convey a shade of existential sorrow, as if in realization that he's starting down a slippery slope.

Frankly, the only thing that frightens me about this number are those damn mannequins. Well, that and the piano player...

*Transylvanian accent absolutely required.

Children? Some People Shouldn't Even Have Pets

You know I adore me some Joan, but the only thing I can see in that poor spaniel's eyes is "Kill me. Kill me now."

Desperate Measures

In the dying days of Burlesque, things got so bad they'd try anything; still, The Cubist Cuties of 1951 didn't help.

To Sleep; Perchance to Dream...

One of the reasons I've been less than productive these past few days is that I've been sleeping oddly. Not badly, mind you; as happens occasionally, I've actually been sleeping rather too deeply. Mr. Muscato discovered this when a couple of nights ago I was unmoved and unwakened by a series of loudly slamming doors (wind; the downside of having the house opened up during these precious cooler months) and subsequently furiously barking dog.

When I go through these bouts of sleep-to-the-point-of-unconsciousness, I often wake more tired than after a similar amount of the usual dozing. Moreover, I'm more prone than usual to remembering dreams - usually long, complicated, and repetitive dreams. This week's featured, in a starring role, Miss Bonham Carter, albeit not in a lilac fur-trimmed peignoir as seen here.

We were walking together, for a very long time, doing the usual dream-state pointless searching for things, talking about other things, and generally not making much sense.

I woke suddenly yesterday morning at one such dream's end, just as she turned to me and said, "you know what the real problem is, don't you? Don't you?"

"Tell me," said I.

She turned away; looking gravely over her shoulder as she walked off, she said, simply: "Mystery clown."

And so I woke up. And this is what I Googled from that phrase:

Amazingly, despite the horror of that image, last night I slept the dreamless, refreshing sleep of the innocent and feel much restored.

But what could it mean?

Girl Just Wants to Have Fun

I know I've already run one Carole Samaha video this month (and how many blogs do you read that can claim that?), but over the last couple of days I keep running across this one and find myself smitten - it's random and poppy and just great fun.

It's the Lebanese diva's hit "Ali", and in it she, a couple of girlfriends, and a pair of I'm quite totally certain platonic pals dance it up. I'm loving the ice-cream colors, the Demoiselles de Rochefort choreography, the very 1986 synth hook, and the way it makes me think of numbers from things like Star Struck, if it were Middle Eastern instead of Australian.

{Nite}Club Sandwich

I don't know about you, but if I could find a joint like this for lunch, I'd never again darken the doorstep of the staff cafeteria. Afternoon productivity? To hell with it; I'm spending the rest of the day with my new friends Pepper, Chet, and Rita...

Freeze Tag

I have to admit that the prospect of having been tagged (see horrid logo, left) has very nearly stopped me in my tracks, given that it presented the appalling prospect of having to display this image and then talk about myself.

Well, we've been over this ground before, but Peenee (predictably, what with being evil incarnate and all) showed no mercy, and he was even joined in his devil's work by the 'til now comparatively benign Felix.

So, it seems I've been double-tagged, which - as with so much in life - turns out to be not nearly the naughty romp it sounds like it ought to be. herewith, even so, my turn at the Kreativ Blogger Meme Award, or whatever it's called.

1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award.

Thank you, Peenee and Felix. And damn your eyes, while we're at it.

2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.

Done, over my better judgment.

3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.

See 2, above.

4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.

...And this is where it gets appalling. I've not been nearly as sharing (to put it kindly) as some people (looking at Peenee), but having been writing about myself in drips and drabs for the past year and a half, it's hard to come up with too much that's terribly fresh. I think I'll just free associate for a bit and hope for the best:

(1) My Arabic has been improving of late, to the point that at times I will pretend to understand less than I do, mostly so I can listen to Mr. Muscato chat with friends while they think I won't get it all. Not that he's ever really come out with anything amazingly indiscreet (although the friends occasionally do, mostly on the Appalling Conspiracy Theory front), but I've kind of got to like being the silent one when we're out with the boys.

(2) I worry that we've gotten too comfortable living in a comparatively quiet and provincial place, and that when and if the opportunity arises, we'll end up being boring country mice anywhere slightly more happening.


(3) The most amusing Big Lady I ever got to work with, hands down: Tyne Daly. Smart, funny, foul-mouthed, and amazingly talented. She can sing an adagio version of "There's No Business Like Show Business" that will, as she herself has said, make strong men weep (never thought about it as a slow song? Believe me, it works - that's a lyric that can be sung sad). She's the real deal. That said, she's not the one I loved the most. But that's another story.

(4) I have been mugged or assaulted five times - twice with a gun - and been burgled twice (once with arson for that extra frisson). Yet the most that any of the idiot failed criminals ever got off me was $5, a ring with a cracked amethyst, and a small bowlful of change and subway tokens (leaving contemptuously behind the small bowl itself, a rather good piece of Georgian sterling courtesy of Grandmother Muscato). The fire, admittedly, got a good deal more, but that hardly benefited the perp.

(5) On a brighter note, I have never in more than twenty years of at times essentially continuous travel had a moment's (knock wood) difficulty, not anywhere from Tokyo to Ouagadougou, despite having now and then been, to be kind, a fairly Easy Mark. Strangers have benevolently put me in taxis and sent me back to the occasional hotel; I've found myself by happenstance in neighborhoods neither accustomed nor welcoming to new faces; small coups, even, have broken out nearby - but to date I've sailed serenely through. Here's to twenty years more...


(6) I may not be freakishly double-jointed like some people, but my first ballet teacher (a small and ill-tempered Russian woman) declared with satisfaction on first looking me up and down that I possessed the best natural turnout she had ever seen in a boy. Sadly, that forever after remained my principal terpsichoric distinction, and it only gets one so far, but it did serve as her principal, if steadily less encouraging, talking point about me for the next five years.

(7) 2010 promises to be a year of changes that may or may not provide the chance to revisit some - I profoundly hope not all - of these issues. Watch this space.

5. Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers and post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.

But this is where I reap the benefit of being so terribly late in accepting my tag - I truly think this is one meme that has run its course and needn't be inflicted on anyone further. At least until somebody comes up with a better logo.

Birthday Genius: The Big Bad Woolf

I'll be wishing many happy returns today, on her 128th, to the amazing woman seen above in a portrait by her almost equally remarkable sister. The picture is a 1912 portrait of Virginia Woolf by Vanessa Bell; once upon a time they were the daring Stephen sisters who took a house in Bloomsbury without a chaperone, and many, many things have been different ever since.

The work of Virginia Woolf too often these days is overshadowed by her life and career, by the people she knew and, most recently, by the often byzantine biographical and literary reinterpretations dreamed up by the people who study her and them. I can't recommend too strongly just going back to her books, which while they can be a challenge, reward it. If nothing else, she's a great deal more interesting than Nicole Kidman's wan, swanning impression, or even Michael Cunningham's rather sharper take.

Were I teaching Woolf 101, the introductory course to Bloomsbury for the Quizzical, I would start with Orlando, followed by The Voyage Out and some of the essays, only after which would students be permitted to read Quentin Bell's engrossing biography of his aunt and then embark on Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse. After that, one would be ready for anything, even the novels of V. Sackville-West and the acid pen of Mr. Lytton Strachey.

It's one course, however, that one cannot slide by on by seeing the films. Vanessa Redgrave is lovely in Mrs. Dalloway, but it's not really very Woolfy; The Hours can't really count; Orlando ought to be burnt; and anyone who goes into Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? seeking biographical insight is only going to come out very, very confused.

Today actually offers an authorial two-for-one - sharing the day is Mr. Somerset Maugham, in his day a far more commercial author and sometime acquaintance of the Woolfs. Neither he nor his work has aged as well, however, although one would still be better of being afraid of him than the languid lady painted by her sister...

Why Don't You...

...attempt a climb up the slippery slope of Absolute Perfection? Babe Paley gave it her best shot - and very nearly achieved the summit. It didn't make her happy, but...

Actually, on second thought - why not stay home in your bathrobe and enjoy life a little?

Serpent of Old Nile

Well, kids, the bad news is that the Café's favorite handsomeness pageant, the fabulous Manhunt International, appears to be on indefinite hold for the moment, ostensibly, according to its homepage, because of H1N1-related concerns on behalf of this year's host government, South Korea.

The good news is that thinking about this august annual event gives me an excuse, however tenuous, to run a photo of the rather exquisite onetime Mr. Egypt, Tarek Naguib. He's seen here rising from the Nile. Which, from what I remember of the Nile, may not be the world's most salubrious idea, although he certainly makes it look pleasant...

It's the Story...

I don't know about you, but it came as a complete surprise to me to discover that, for a time, Michael Jackson and his family lived in a home designed by noted West Coast architect Mike Brady.

The Ladies in Red

Is it just me, or does it seem a little World Turned Upside Down to see a photograph in which Liza Minnelli is significantly more tastefully dressed and looks calmer and more self-assured than Audrey Hepburn? She must have, for once, have gotten the meds just right.

File Under "Business Names, Dubious"

My forebrain accepts that this undoubtedly entirely respectable enterprise is very likely named after a term of art in the omnipresent local petroleum-extraction industry - but my lizard brain just laughs and laughs...

Yesterday, When We Were Young

More like rising thirty years ago, actually. Time in its flight...

Tri', Tri' Again

Yes, once again it's everybody's favorite Anodyne Recordings* superstars, the Tri'Tones!

This is, I believe, a still from their failed attempt to join the cast of The Beverly Hillbillies as a quartet of singing Bugtussle lovelies who come to visit the Clampetts. Either that, or they're showing their devotion to The Lawrence Welk Show by dressing up as Norma Zimmer.

In any case, it didn't get them far - for which I think we can all be grateful.

* A wholly owned subsidiary of Bland-Whitebread Amalgamated Enterprises.

Compare and Contrast

Today, let's do a little show-biz exegesis, shall we? Herewith, three versions of one song, spanning, in various ways, three eras of entertainment and of interpretation.

First up, Judy. Her rendition - complete with an almost never-heard intro - is a reminder, among other things, of what a superb band singer she was. She brings all she's got to this number, but never for a moment lets you really think she believes it - a very Vaudeville attitude toward what could be a pretty cynical number.

Barbra's version is, as you'll see at the very end, actually from her appearance on The Judy Garland Show; in fact, it aired the fall before Judy's. Still, it's light years away from her hostess's playful but faithful rendition, poised as it is on the edge of mid-sixties "kookiness", as if just waiting for Laugh-In to happen.

Streisand at this age - just 21 - is amazing to watch; she's not so much performing as possessed by a talent she's still trying to figure out how to handle. That makes the bridge of this arrangement, a mishmash of other love songs, so odd and so oddly effective. How is it possible that this awkward, basically uneducated and unworldly girl can be at succeeding moments the gawkiest thing since My Friend Flicka and a one-woman compendium of twentieth-century show-biz?

Finally, the state of the art, turn of the century edition. Audra McDonald has the most "trained" voice of these three, and she gives a sense of acting the part of a nightclub belter rather than being one. Still, she's got the chops to put this one over, and her manic break midsong is if anything even more fun than Babs's.

What does it all prove? Honestly, I'm not at all sure, although I do know that I adore all three. I've never understood the need to choose one diva and automatically shower filth on any other. I think that maybe the lesson is: talent will out.

Heavage

I can't think what could have put poor dear Upen Patel into such a pensive mood - unless it's the prospect of doing up all those buttons. Or the sudden realization - having been reading Peenee again - that what with International Male more or less folding, he'll never be able to replace that shirt with any other garment as utterly tawdry.

Diamond Anniversary

Sixty years ago today, Elizabeth Taylor ended her academic career, a fetching graduate of Hollywood's University High School. Or at least was photographed by Life, cap-and-gowned, as doing so.

Housewife Superstar

Oh, dear - time in its flight; Edith Bunker is 87 years old today. Rather, of course, the great lady who played her, Jean Stapleton, has reached that great age.

All in the Family and being Edith may have been what made Stapleton a household name, but real Jeanketeers love her best as another memorable New Yorker: Sue, proprietrix of Susanswerphone, in the treasurable musical (stage and film) Bells are Ringing. She plays the voice of reason - never an easy thing in a musical comedy - and does so in a way that only sets off sweetly, wildly anarchic Judy Holliday to even better advantage.

Once upon a time (and you will forgive me if I stroll down Memory Lane, won't you?), back when I was doing my Birdie Coogan impression and being amanuensis to a Personage of the Theatre, I was on dressing-room door duty. My Personage was not the fastest of changers, and so quite a group would sometimes form to say good evening and (a vanishing phenomenon, I think, however familiar from the pictures) have a drink or two. I had just put my head out and been encouraging to the dozen or so people waiting, when what felt like just seconds later there was a firm rap at the door.

I was busy, dammit, and it was with rather too much force that I threw the door open with something likely along the lines of "What?" Collecting myself, I looked...up. Standing there was a very tall and, briefly, very apologetic lady. Briefly, because within nanoseconds I was falling over to (a) frantically apologize and (b) not make a total fool of myself in front of Sue. She was far nicer than I deserved - what with her having known my Personage for significantly longer than, at that point, I had been alive and all - and the evening went uphill from there.

I think some of the other people who'd been waiting felt quite put out that I wasn't nearly as flustered by them. What can I say? They never spent any time on the same switchboard as Our Lady of the Bonjour Tristesse Brassiere Company...