Travelogue - Here's Grace (and Oscar, and Oysters and...)

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City by the Bay

Except for the hills, it turns out that what San Francisco reminds me of is Alexandria (the real one, not the DC suburb, of course). Both are cities profoundly shaped by water; both feature scads of fabulous Beaux Arts architecture (although San Francisco's are in rather better shape on the whole) juxtaposed with a dizzying array of other styles; and both seem to feature a disproportionate number of deeply attractive - and an equal number of deeply outlandish - people.

Adieu, Enfant de la Patrie

It wasn't a grand career - but it did include one of the most stirring moments ever put on film. I hope that Madeleine LeBeau - gone this weekend to meet Rick over at his new place in Fabulon - knows what she meant to all of us who love Casablanca.

Open Your Golden Gate...

Well, the Powers That Be that guide my life (at least in its 9-to-5 variations) certainly are puzzling.  Having decisively put me, last year, into a quiet corner where I can do no harm, they've suddenly decided to release me once more out into the great wide world...

One Man Band

 The last time we checked in with musical prodigy Alaa Wardi, he was turning the semi-dross of Lorde's "Royals" into something rich and strange.

Redux 2016: M is for...

M is for... first appeared on May 10, 2009 and has become my Mother's Day tradition. Once, again, Happy Mother's Day, Mother Muscato, wherever you are...

Luncheon is Served

The retirement lunch (artist's impression)

My office can sometimes seem like a bit of a backwater; oh, we're busy enough, but one way or another, many of us are not exactly the hard-charging Type-A types one thinks of as minions of a busy multinational. What it can seem like, from time to time, is like a prelude to life in a well-run sunset home. And in general, that suits me fine.

Toy [Not] in the Attic

She was marketed as a character from the recent Disney Cinderella, one played in the film by Miss Cate Blanchett. As for me, though, I can't get past thinking of her as Lillian Hellman Barbie. Photos don't really do justice to her expression, which is something between peeved and not-suffering-fools-gladly - a feeling with which I suppose one really must feel some empathy...

R.I.P.: Sculptress Superstar

The misty shores of Fabulon have gained a major dose of Pop glam this week with the passing thence of the artistic enigma once world-famous, like Madonna or Cher (or, for that matter, Charo), by only her first name: Marisol.

Birthday Girl: The Wisdom of Eve

I suppose it says something about me more than anything else, but my feed over at Facebook just plain lit up with the news that yesterday was the birthday of the heavenly Miss Eve Arden.