Birthday Boy: The Pre-Impressionist

Male Nude, 1850

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, a sprightly 188 today, was the toast of Paris at the height of his career, but his brand of meticulous technique and strict adherence to the conventions of that dread monolith, The Academy, guaranteed his place as a principal villain of each successive aesthetic revolution that changed the world's perception of painting from the rise of Manet until just the past couple of decades.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Have you started cooking yet?

Turkey Trot

A very happy Thanksgiving to all my favorite seasonal fruitcakes...

Birthday Boy: C'est Lui

Today's celebrant falls into a sadly unfashionable category:  the full-throated singing leading man.

Truth. That's Her Nature.

Heroes come in unlikely packages.

Irma la Douce

This week ushers in the season in which millions of Americans, whether they know it or not, pay homage to the mild-mannered matron seen here clutching her magnum opus...

Redux: Freeze Tag

Stop time.  Have her remember why they need to leave.  Decide to fly out that night, back to the capital, fly back to the children.  Think of a reason.

Sales Pitches of Yesteryear

Hard to imagine trying to make this slogan work in one of today's Madison Avenue campaigns, no?

Portrait d'une Demi-Star

There's not nearly enough shouting about Mary Astor.

Pull All the Stops Out

Well, she certainly got herself a gimmick...

Birthday Boy: Rock, Star

It hardly seems possible, but it seems I've never seen Lover, Come Back...

Shameless Saturday Camp Explosion: Dance, Dance, Dance Little Lady

One is drawn to Camp when one realizes that "sincerity" is not enough. 

- Susan Sontag, "Notes on Camp"

Birthday Girls: Bang Bangs!

Many happy returns today to two of the Café's favorite (for very different reasons) ladies...

Winging It

You know what's nice to come home to on a cold November evening?

Such Devoted Sisters

It doesn't surprise me a bit that they were terrier gals...

Bonus Camp Explosion: Birthday Stupenda

It was Dame Joan Sutherland's birthday earlier this week (November 7), and I felt badly about missing it, not least because of the marvelous treat you have in store, just after the jump...

Shameless Saturday Camp Explosion: A Piece of Happiness...

It's simply that the process of aging or deterioration provides 

the necessary detachment - or arouses a necessary sympathy. 

- Susan Sontag, "Notes on Camp"

Les Feuilles Mortes

Since we last saw it in August, the view from my office has changed...

Birthday Boy: Beautiful Stranger

It can, on an abstract level, be a blessing when the beautiful die young.

Early and Often

So tomorrow is Election Day here in the Old Dominion, and even though it's an off-off-year round, I'm inordinately excited at the prospect.

Meanwhile, at a Fashionable Soirée...

Another fraught moment of the Gilded Age...

Shameless Saturday Camp Explosion: "Galli-Curci, Flagstad, and Myself"

"Camp rests on innocence. That means Camp discloses 

innocence, but also, when it can, corrupts it." 

- Susan Sontag, "Notes on Camp"

It struck me suddenly as odd that we'd gotten this far into this apparently endless series without ever addressing some of the most basic ur-texts, as it were, of the Camp canon.